The Prisoner's Cipher
by Ecthelion3
Summary: AU. Years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter remains a willing and secret prisoner of the Ministry, but not all is what it seems. Harry has a plan, and the world will never be the same.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary**: AU. Years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter remains a willing and secret prisoner of the Ministry, but not all is what it seems. Harry has a plan, and the world will never be the same.

This story takes place several years after Hogwarts. You can count on books 1-5 for background information but everything after that is completely different and left to be intuited from this fanfic.

A special thanks to _The Santi_ for the summary and the reviewers at DLP for their valuable insight and critiques.

Enjoy.

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

**_Prologue_**

Hermione peered down at the see-in ceiling of the prison cell below her. The cell itself was completely devoid of color - opaque really, and immaculately clean. It had been named "The Holding Room" by some of the full time guards and the name had stuck.

The room had only a desk and a cot. The Prisoner, a rather special long-term case, was told he could have three things subject to approval. With almost no hesitation The Prisoner had chosen a desk, paper, and a quill. When told whatever he wrote would be collected on a weekly basis and that the quills were to be exchanged for new ones the prisoner merely nodded in content affirmation.

Everything was granted, no harm was seen in the requests. After all, The Prisoner could not perform magic. Hundreds of wards, dozens of which Hermione herself had installed took care of that - leeching The Prisoner's magical core dry on a continual basis.

And so the prisoner wrote. Almost twenty hours a day The Prisoner scribbled with an untidy scrawl, crossing out, rewriting, and ruminating on his work. The Holding Room's guards looked with suspicion while experts from every profession looked with hope that the writings would produce the break-through they had been looking for on this high profile, complicated arrest. The air was optimistic, the nature of The Prisoner's capture leading some to believe the writings would be some sort of confession. This, however, was simply too good to be true.

In fact, it was _entirely _too good to be true. The writings weren't even legible - to anyone. The experts had looked at it in wonder and deep consternation, while the guards simply glared with fearful eyes.

The Prisoner had concocted a language purely of his own.

Immediately they poured over The Prisoner's work with an air of urgency and mild trepidation. The language seemed to be a cross of phonetic and syllabic languages, a cross-breed of hieroglyphics and lettering of both Muggle and Wizard background. People highly talented in the arts of linguistics, combinatorics, logic, statistics, and more spent months upon months utilizing their skills in vain on The Prisoner's cipher.

Many wished to merely dismiss the strange glyphs as the mere ramblings of a man gone insane. But the experts knew better. Anyone who knew anything about languages could see and _feel_ the structured patterns within the parchment. There was an inexplicably brilliant and ingenious system powering the language's mechanics. Yet no one had even come close to deciphering it in ten years of fevered pursuit.

It had been unanimously agreed on by experts and amateurs alike that the language was one completely made up from scratch. Their use of prior languages gave no precedent in which to solve it. Every attempted solution yielded complete gibberish and dead ends.

The solution had to be found within The Prisoner's own past, it was the only angle the cryptologists had not tried in their vast arsenal of knowledge and ideas. Unfortunately, The Prisoner's past was so shrouded in mystery and guesswork that it was essentially as difficult to decipher as the cipher itself.

Which is where she came in. Hermione Jane Granger-Weasley. She was thought to be a metaphorical Rosetta Stone for this case. One of the most lauded minds of her generation and a key player in taking down Voldemort's forces, she truly was a force to be reckoned with. She was by no means a linguist, but she was exceedingly clever and well read. The fact that she was a researcher for the Department of Mysteries was more than a testament to this.

But other people just as clever, perhaps more, and certainly more read on the concept of deciphering languages had been on this case before her. It was not her intellect that was the main reason for her being here. It was her unique past with The Prisoner that made her role in solving the created language so essential.

Hermione swallowed thickly as she peered down once more at The Prisoner. He was sitting tranquilly at his desk, writing as though adding the finishing touches to a Transfiguration essay.

Oh how she wished so badly those days were still here. How many times had she seen The Prisoner write as he was now, brow furrowed in intense concentration, his foot slightly tapping in excess energy? Desperately getting a hold of her emotions, Hermione readied herself for a confrontation she had thought so much about but never once attempted. Not once in the eleven years since The Prisoner had been detained had she had a face to face engagement with him.

She shut The Prisoner's files with a soft finality, revealing his photo just hours after his capture. He looked feral and dirty from the campaign he had led. No injustice shown through his gleaming eyes, but a cold calculating fury demented his young, handsome features. He gazed as though challenging anyone to look into his eyes and not back down, not for help as others might have done. As those who were innocent might have done.

The Prisoner.

Number 19683.

Harry James Potter.

**_Chapter One_**

He looked good, all things considered. Really good.

He bore himself with silent confidence and a boyish charm that exuded a sense of calm and tranquility that she had never before witnessed in her first friend.

Poised but placid, a smile not quite reaching his eyes greeted her as he walked towards her with uncommon smoothness. A healthy glow emanated from his face giving her a reasonable excuse to soak in the handsomeness that the years after Voldemort had allowed him to develop.

Everything in the room was an opaque white, even his clothes. His eyes pinned onto hers with the intensity she well remembered, but glistened with a strange and foreign clarity.

Her fingers subconsciously began to fiddle, echoes of the numerous warnings resonating within her mind, both from herself and others.

"Hello Hermione."

His voice was not scratched or laden with emotion as she had so often simulated in her mind of this meeting. It was as his exterior, calm and unperturbed.

She had prepared herself for this moment, she truly had. But as the silence settled in she had a nasty suspicion that she hadn't prepared enough.

Her first undoing was looking once more at his eyes. His eyes had always been alluring, expressive when all else was stoic. Here and now they sparkled with intelligent inquisitiveness amongst a disconcerting calm.

Hermione had seizure of feelings grip her stomach – memories of the friend and person he had once been melding violently with the person she knew him to be now.

An overwhelming urge to rush and hug him wracked her body, threatening to throw all caution and professionalism to the wind. Thoughts of the job she had to do here and her husband kept her together.

Harry peered at her in a fashion that told her he knew exactly what was going on in her mind. No further emotion showed upon his visage.

"Hi Harry" Hermione said, unsure of whether she felt like she was asking someone on a date, talking to a professor, or talking to a wall.

Harry simply stared at her with a content look upon his face, "Why don't we take a seat, Hermione? A little chat for long lost friends?"

Hermione nodded, ignoring the sharp pang cutting her stomach. Wasn't she the one supposed to open up the conversation? Another painful realization quite bluntly told her that her meticulously laid out plan before coming in the room had already been long lost.

She simply had not been ready to face him again.

Harry sat in his chair in a relaxed fashion, somewhat far from the desk. His other hand played with a quill in his fingers in a slightly transfixing manner.

"I take it this isn't a personal visit, then?"

"No Harry... it isn't" Hermione replied, although she felt as though it had turned into one in the past minute or so.

"The papers then, hmm?"

"Yes."

"Then I suppose you're here to figure it out?"

She nodded. His eyes suddenly brightened considerably.

"Have you found it as amusing as I have? Eleven years... and it's still unbroken! For all they know it could be doodles."

Hermione who had looked at Harry's writings for months knew beyond a doubt they were not doodles.

"We both know they're not doodles, Harry."

"Well you of all people know I'm a doodler, Hermione..."

"Harry please, that's ridiculous, _these_ glyphs are not doodles - "

"Did you see the one with the aardvark and umbrella? I had two interrogations over that one!" Harry laughed, and Hermione looked in wonder at his enjoyment.

"Well, yes, _some_ of them were doodles I suppose - but please be reasonable with me Harry... you _are_ writing something."

"Hermione I think you're being a wee bit presumptuous..."

Hermione was starting to be more than irritated at his coyness. He hadn't seen her - anybody actually - for over 10 years and _this _is how he chooses his facade? Already this meeting was going in a direction she didn't like. This Harry was not the Harry she once knew, but he had a frightening ability to bring back memories of what he once was.

She shook her head slightly, readying herself to just simply get to the point as civilly as she could.

"Honestly Harry, your... whatever it is, 'language' is..." and she hesitated, "_amazing_," Hermione responded, and she wasn't lying.

Harry gave her a pointed look as if telling her to tell him why. It was also quite obvious to her that he knew why as well.

Hermione had a sudden flashback to her as a child completing large jigsaw puzzles and her parents watching over her back in silence from the living room sofa.

When she had poured over the tons and tons of paper that had been accumulated over the years, she found herself more and more impressed with Harry's creation. She recognized a variety of patterns, but could make no clean hypothesis as to what the papers were actually saying. She had been, and still was, completely and utterly stumped.

She had initially thought it would be simple. Cryptology was an ancient and well established field. Yet the patterns that she intuited from Harry's work defied all of the codes from the literature and belied something new entirely. She had intuited some of the underlying principles of the language but could make no more headway. The burning question in her mind from the past six months came out at last.

"How did you combine mathematical rhetoric with something as arbitrary and unstable as a language? Harry... I _know _you're placing letters or sounds with mathematic rules to construct your sentences. I just don't get, _at all_, what the symbols represent - There's barely any consistency, they change! Even from week to week!"

And she really, _really_ did want to know. How had she missed this type of intellect in Harry? What further ingenious machinations were the writings depicting? How much had he hidden from her, from Ron... from everybody? What had happened those last few years before he'd been taken in?

Harry took her academic tirade in stride, as he always had. He had begun to scratch something on a paper in front of him with slow methodical strokes.

"How are you and Ron?"

Hermione blinked in surprise at the turn of topics, unsure of how to respond. A nagging part of her wanted her to lash out in anger, for him betraying her and everyone like he did. But the way he sat at the desk... so passive and dressed in prisoner's garb, stayed her mouth, moving her feelings dangerously close to pity.

The guards had instructed her to take off her wedding bands so as to not give Harry any sort of verbal ammunition or information, but she supposed his observation was merely the obvious.

"We're... we're very happy."

"I'm glad, very glad... and I'm guessing he went on the Auror side of things, rather than Quidditch?"

Hermione's eyes widened slightly in surprise, "Yes... he did. It was a very hard decision. How did you know? Did someone tell you?"

"Come now Hermione, you know I'm not allowed news in here."

"Then how did you know?"

He pointed casually with his quill at her arms. Her heart clenched in realization of what he was referring to.

"You have a rather sloppy stinging ward placed on your lower arms. No one bothers to cast those but Aurors, and Ron's always missed the subtleties when it comes to casting the more meticulous branches of magic. So his 'signature,' so to say, is quite easy to spot. It's very sloppily done. You should have done it yourself, we both know you could cast a better one... Thank goodness I'm not the violent type, I doubt that ward would do much harm."

Hermione stared at him in wonder, seeing him not for the first time this afternoon, as if in a new light. A retort was on the tip of her tongue that would curtly point out that he _was_ the violent type but Harry interrupted her before she could start.

"In fact, the very idea that you let him cast and _kept _such a dismal spell - that I know you know is subpar - speaks volumes of your relationship with him. The person who makes Hermione Granger consciously outfit herself with lamentable mediocrity must be a special man indeed! I congratulate you both," and he looked up momentarily from his drawings to give her a quick handsome smile.

When she recovered, his face was once more buried in concentration in whatever he was scribbling. Despite her rising anger, she could not help but ask her initial worries.

"Harry..." she intoned slowly, "how did you detect that spell?"

The very idea of him able to use magic made her more than a little bit uncomfortable. She had seen first-hand the power and cold violence he could commit. She was given an obscene amount of warded objects to wear by the guards that would probably kill him if he tried any sort of physical attack, but it still did not quell the needling feeling of fear in her chest. Perhaps she _should _have cast the stinging hex herself... and the others Ron had insisted he put on. No doubt Harry knew of those too... somehow.

"Living for ten years in the absence of magic leads one to be, if I may say so myself, exceptionally in-tune with the precious few encounters of magic I may have."

"By the way, you're part in the boxing ward placed on this cell is exquisite, Hermione. It's a beauty, for sure."

Hermione stared. She was beyond uncomfortable. She needed to get what she came for and get out. The things he was saying... they belied a power and intellect that was cunning and immeasurably sharp and she was completely unprepared for it. She was clearly out of her element and he was playing her like a masterful concerto.

Nothing was going to come out of this meeting for her own personal closure, and the chances of her getting something out of it as a professional were slim to none. She decided to give one more try, and leave. There was nothing to be gained here but pain.

"Harry I just need you to tell me about your writings. Then I can leave you alone, _they_ can leave you alone."

"I've been alone almost all my life Hermione, and never more than now. Why wouldn't I want your company?"

Her eyes narrowed, "This time it's of your own doing Harry, I know what you did."

"Oh, do you?"

"I know so, Harry. Then and later when I testified under oath _and_ Veritaserum."

"Oh yes, how easy it is for me to forget..." by this time Harry had set down his quill, an intricate drawing with some sort of inscription above it was showing, but she couldn't quite see it clearly behind his arm. He seemed to have finished it. He was smiling but she could feel the tension build to higher levels than before.

"You _and_ Ron, of course I remember... a crowd favorite too... did so well together in the court room... rather indicative of what's become, don't you think?"

Hermione stared, at a loss for words.

"You know, Ron's speech had some pretty big words in it, you didn't happen to have a hand in that did you...? Not like any of your testimonials did anything in the end anyhow..."

She had of course, and she squirmed under his penetrating speeches, but she fumed at the fact she had entertained such cherished and warm memories and thoughts of him earlier.

"Harry just give me a single clue, a single affirmation as to what the hell at least one of these symbols mean! The sooner you give me something, the sooner I can get the hell out of here, figure out your 'language,' and never come back."

She wanted her speech to hurt him, as his words had done to her. But her tirade was a dull butter knife as his was a precise and finely tuned carving knife. Harry merely smiled wantonly and reclined slightly in his chair peering at her just above his glasses.'

"No... no no, I don't think so. I rather like entertaining the thought of you not knowing something that I had made up in a matter of seconds. I mean... it's your fault you can't decipher it anyhow," he finished, chuckling at the end.

And what was that supposed to mean? Hermione was brimming with anger but managed to simmer, "What do you mean _my_ fault?" she said with a dangerously low tone.

Harry leaned a little across the desk with childlike mirth in his eyes, Hermione forced herself not to consciously back away.

"Meeting with me might flare up a couple undercurrent feelings of jealousy in our red-headed compatriot, yes? You, still having to devote your attention to me even after all these years... truly a pity, I do apologize."

Harry locked eyes with her as if making sure she was listening, and continued.

"I mean... a little court testimonial bonding doesn't fix every kink in a relationship, yah? Snakes have fangs, while dogs have teeth, but Big Boy Red here has the blinding surge of jealousy for his lethal bite. I'm guessing you and Ron will have the customary spat over this meeting, correct? "

Hermione would rather eat a dead mongoose than admit his correct assumption.

"No no... no need to answer that as well, Hermione... it is rather rhetorical after all. All I'm saying is that this time when you two get to 'making it up,' you avoid the kitchen counter as you did last time. Merlin knows the things that must fly out of Ron's mouth when eating there... Hygiene my dear, Hygiene... I shudder at the thought..."

_Legilimency! He had used Legilimency!_

Hermione fumed and immediately stood up, knocking over her chair in the process.

The lights flickered dangerously in the room, and she immediately felt drained and weak. She immediately recognized that she had done accidental magic. She heard the guards burst in the room and make to cart her off.

All she could see was Harry, who hadn't moved from his position, still calm as ever behind the large opaque desk. Her hateful glance burned at him, willing him to combust on spot. A bemused smile sat contently upon his lips.

Her voice was weak from the magical deprivation but hissed venomously, "You're a bloody murderer, _Potter_, a murderer and a terrible person that's no better than the murderer you put down!"

Harry merely cocked his head, her lashing statements evoking no other emotion from him.

A small quaint smile graced his lips as he worded his reply with tantalizing annunciation, "Don't forget to shut the door, Hermione. Ignorance has a nasty habit of finding its way into the conversations that happen here."

Even in her hate she recognized the oddness of this statement and her eyes sought his, despite her fears of being subjected to his Legilimency.

The intensity in which his eyes met hers took her breath away. Unable to look away she saw his eyes shoot a pointed look towards the desk.

The realization barely made it through her red haze.

_The paper! _It was gone... Where had it - ?

Harry, ever so slightly, nodded towards her left pocket. The paper, neatly folded, was just visible coming out of her pocket.

_How..._

Somehow, Harry had managed to slip the piece of paper in her pocket during the distraction of her anger... He had to have used magic, there was no other way, it was not possible to have been done so physically.

_How?_

Her eyes caught his one last time, showing not only her astounded confusion, but her awareness of the act that had happened.

Her hand pushed the paper further into her pocket as the guards took her out of the Holding Room, her mind reeling from the events that had unfolded. The guards were peppering her with questions but her mind simply was not up for the occasion.

All she knew was that she had come out with a lot more questions then the answers she had come in looking for.

Suddenly she froze as an epiphany hit her, causing the guards to stumble into her, still waving their wands distractingly to dispel the numerous wards on her body and the objects she carried.

"Finally!" yelled a nameless Ministry witch, "We've asked you to stop walking ages ago!" but Hermione didn't care in the least.

She stared for a half second at the hand that had just pushed down the paper. She had not just pushed down one paper, but many. Harry must have put the ones she had been watching him write earlier with the one he had completed while talking to her.

Her heart in her mouth, she quickly answered the guards' questions without once betraying her knowledge of the papers in her pocket.

She wrapped her coat around her shoulders in a protective, shielding manner as she desperately tried not to ask herself why she was hiding what Harry had given her.

She had to get home.


	2. Chapter 2

Alrighty. Here's the second chapter. There's a lot in it, and as always, let me know how it goes. Be forewarned, it's much different than chapter one. The rest of the chapters will follow the tone (somewhat) of chapter one. Chapter two sets up the information needed for the rest of the story to flyyyyyyy.

Thank you for the responses, they're much appreciated. I've read them all. I'm going to wait for another chapter or two to directly respond to some as I believe the upcoming chapters will address most of them. For those of you concerned about pairings, don't be - This is not a romance. But I can say that the interactions/dynamics of the main characters should be pleasing to _everyone _no matter who you ship or if you don't. Please read on.

**Summary**: AU. Years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter remains a willing and secret prisoner of the Ministry, but not all is what it seems. Harry has a plan, and the world will never be the same.

As always, a special thanks to the reviewers at DLP for their valuable insight and critiques.

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

_Chapter Two_

She had walked up from the kitchen roughly thirty minutes ago from a conversation with Ron. It was only then that Hermione realized she had failed to tell him about the papers, even when she had full intentions of doing so. She would tell him in the morning.

Ron had been on edge for days upon hearing she had to go interrogate Harry, constantly trying get the Ministry officials to let him go with her. They had refused and he had truly been out of sorts. She really couldn't blame him.

Harry had always been a touchy subject for them, not really discussed unless absolutely necessary. Harry had been a solid and indomitable force for them for five years. But during the summer after fifth year Harry had come to some sort of epiphany and confronted Dumbledore. The next thing they knew Harry had told them that he was to receive special training and he'd disappeared. The only news they received about him was increasingly fewer numbers of letters from Harry and scraps of information from the Daily Prophet. Several years went by and still had heard nothing, but she and Ron were still loyal.

It was Hermione's twenty first birthday when they had heard they would be reuniting with Harry on the battlefield. She had been elated but Ron had fallen into a silent stupor.

It had only taken a while for her to realize that he was scared of once again being shown up by the enigmatic Harry Potter. When he had left, Ron had stepped up and filled the void that Harry's large presence had left. Ron had prospered and found himself and became the man he was today when Harry had gone.

Really, he had nothing to worry about. Ron had truly matured and became a formidable wizard and a respectable man. He still had an unquenchable temper and did act without thinking on occasion but it was only on the rarest of occasions. Plus, what was a Weasley without a temper?

Yet Ron saw the reunion as a test of a sort… in his eyes it was a showdown between the man he had become and the man whose disappearance allowed it.

Whatever she had said to him could not convince him otherwise.

Needless to say Ron had performed magnificently but he had not even come close to the level that the Boy Who Lived brought to the battlefield. Harry had been absolutely unstoppable, a force of nature. It had been his coming out day - the day Harry Potter was released for good into the battle against Voldemort - and he had given the world a show for the ages. It was the kicking off of two year campaign in which Dumbledore and Harry systematically and with relish defeated Voldemort and his minions.

When the three of them met after the battle she had seen Ron's eyes and knew he no longer held any sort of silent animosity with Harry. All he wanted was to reunite with his friend. Hermione had always considered this memory of Ron as one of her favorites. Yet all Harry had done was give her a quick hug and Ron a pat on the back saying thank you and that he was glad they were alright.

Then he had left.

No reunion, no nothing.

She and Ron had never really talked about the severe disappointment of that evening as the War took precedence, then the horrors of Harry's turn completely overshadowing it.

As the years went by the had simply decided to not talk about Harry in general. It was easier that way, and less painful.

But when her involvement in the case was deemed absolutely necessary, thoughts of their once-best friend resurfaced. She knew, as she walked from the apparation point to their home that a talk about him was inevitable.

Ron had greeted her at the doorway with a worried expression upon his freckled face, outfitted fully in Auror gear. A small, caring smile graced her lips – he had been prepared to rush to her help had the guards at Harry's cell told him of trouble.

And so they talked. She had been truthful. She told him what he looked like, what protective measures the guards had put on her, that Harry hadn't tried anything violent, that he'd asked how they were but possessed strange qualities that she'd never seen in him…

"And the code, right? How'd that turn out?" Ron asked.

"Not very well, Ron... he… he got me off balance. The whole conversation lasted maybe five minutes… it did not go as planned at all…"

"Harry didn't tell you anything, did he? I _knew_ it'd be waste of time..."

"I know, you were right... but he did - "

"Do they still need you on the case? There's no need to look at his stupid drawings... He's locked up and gone for good anyways, we should just forget about him and live our own lives like we have the past ten years!"

"You know I'd love to Ron but you know we can't do that... the people that want him figured out are the same ones that control our jobs."

"Let's quit our jobs!"

"You're saying you are willing to quit being an Auror?" Hermione said with a knowing smile.

"Well, no..."

"Then I have to do this Ron."

"But Hermione, you have spent _every _evening on it... _every evening._ You can't tell me that it's only the Ministry's threat on our jobs that's making you do this. I know you better than that."

"Ron. You _know_ what they want these papers for, we've been over this" Hermione said, slightly exasperated this time.

"No, I don't."

"Ron…"

"Okay! But I don't see the point… he's locked up – It. Does. Not. Matter. He's committed tons of murders, got caught, and now he's locked up for good. What more is there to do?"

"Ron we've been over this every time we've brought this up…"

"It doesn't change anything if we do or do find something!"

"_Ron._ You and I both know it's obvious, but realize that not one single incriminating piece of evidence exists? There are NO direct links to what he did, Ron."

And there wasn't. Immediately after Harry had defeated Voldemort in spectacular fashion, he'd disappeared completely for months. No one had the slightest clue where he had gone or why. Most did not think much of it, blaming it on the stress of the war or perhaps the death of his mentor and friend, Albus Dumbledore. She herself had seen his face when Dumbledore had fallen. She had never seen such raw shock (and was it also fear… ?) in someone's face.

But then things started happening. People started to be murdered – not just murdered, but killed with an artistically morbid flair. The work was done not by a person seeking revenge, or some mindless hate crime. It was done by a person who simply saw killing as a play-toy, as though a murder was simply a game of clever innovation without any remorse or fear of being caught.

She remembered one of the first murders. The Creevey brothers had been found dead in their house, slumped over Colin's beloved camera. When the film had been developed the pictures inside it were of their family posing for portraits. It was only a couple months later that it was realized that the particular of plants and herbs that were in the background of the picture were in fact the ingredients in the potion that had killed them.

And she wasn't even going to begin to describe Neville's death, but all of the deaths had a set of clues on the scene for the investigators to figure out how the killer had murdered his victims.

A game.

As a result, the murderer was deemed to be the perfect killer. No one could get a solid grip on any of the murders. The people who were killed didn't always know each other, and sometimes had absolutely no connection with each other. It was befuddling.

It had been her, Hermione Granger, who first noticed that the one thing in common with all the victims was that they all knew Harry Potter.

She had told Ron immediately, and they hesitated to tell anyone else. Initially staying silent, the increasing number of murders forced them to voice their concerns. Their decision to speak out proved invaluable to the detectives and analysts. Soon, little details such as the spells used at the crime scene, the methods of entering the premises, and other nuances hinted and pointed at only a select few who could accomplish them. And only one of them – namely Harry Potter – had any connection, or even lived on the same continent as the victims.

They had set up traps with people he knew in an effort to catch him in the crime, had done secretive raids on places he was known to reside in, but nothing they did or found actually turned up any incriminating evidence.

The Ministry was running out of time and running out of options, and still the murders, as strange and clever as ever, continued.

It was one summer day when a frantic call from the Deputy Headmistress reached the Ministry. Harry Potter was at Hogwarts.

Immediately all of the elite Aurors and officials of the Ministry swarmed into Hogwarts. They found him in the Great Hall, peacefully eating food that a particular Winky the house elf had given him.

He hadn't tried to escape, fight, or even talk. Even as she, Ron, and the rest of the Ministry officials circled and pointed their wands directly at his heart, Harry had simply sat and demurely finished meal – all the while listening to what the lead investigator stated was his claims for bringing Harry in.

They had no evidence to bring Harry in for the crimes they were positive he committed, but they used the next best thing.

"_Harry James Potter, you are being arrested by the Ministry of Magic to be held for an indeterminable amount of time. You have been judged a safety hazard to the general public due to your displays of magic in the take down of He Who Must Not Be Named. Given the proper investigation you may be set free…"_

Harry had merely eaten silently, and when done didn't say a single word but set his wand – a wand Hermione or anyone did not recognize – down and stood up slowly, hands above his head. His face had been blank, but if Hermione were to wager on an emotion, it would have been troubled.

He'd been taken in and subjected to a number of magical tests, interrogations, and more, but not once did they get the evidence they needed to convict him. However, most importantly, the killings stopped once he was taken in. Other than that, they only had Harry's ciphers, which were seen as the last hope of putting him in Azkaban for good, not the special place he had now.

Ron had interrupted her thoughts, "But still! What does it matter? He's not going to escape so it shouldn't be a problem."

"But Ron, _IF_ he did escape, you must know what that would mean?"

"He can't."

"But if he did who knows what he'd do! Not to mention that we've been illegally holding him for over ten years. The public still thinks he's disappeared! We couldn't just tell them their hero had turned evil right after a devastating war… it would have been disastrous for the rebuilding effort! Ron… if he were to get out, he could easily run a smear campaign on us and return as a hero!"

Ron looked at her, raw fear shining in his eyes. She had never told him this fear of hers, but it was indeed a truth that could happen.

Hermione continued, "And it wouldn't even have to be Harry. Harry is the Ministry's best kept secret. Just think if someone like that horrid woman Rita Skeeter got a hold of this story... people would beg for his release!"

Ron nodded in shocked understanding, "But we wouldn't let him go, surely?"

"No... of course not, but do you know how much credibility the Ministry would lose? Not to mention our accusations are just rubbish..."

An uncomfortable silence settled on the kitchen.

"Ron… I know this is tough… but it is pivotal that we find out what Harry has been writing. Then we may have something to keep him in for good, move him to Azkaban where he belongs."

"And plus… don't you just want to _know_?"

"Know what Hermione… "

"To know _why_. We pulled ourselves from this case the moment after he was detained and haven't looked at back at all. Ron, I'm tired of this skeleton in our closet, we need to get it out. Don't you just want to know why he turned into this?"

Ron had sat silently for over a minute. Hermione had literally felt him thinking.

Slowly, looking very weary, Ron replied "Possibly. Maybe. But all I know is that I want my wife back. I haven't seen you outside of dinner, if that, for over six months every day."

Hermione had grabbed his arm with silent reassurance.

"Just figure this out Hermione, just figure it out… so we can move on. I really have a bad feeling about this."

Hermione had merely nodded, too full of emotion to reply, and watched him head to bed.

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Hermione sat in the silence of her study room, recalling what a guest lecturer at the Department of Mysteries from Egypt had said about runes:

_There's a saying amongst magical theorists that states that the moment before magic truly came to being, the study of runes was born._

_Magic had always existed, just as the elements that make up the physical world always have. But the moment that someone harnessed magic to do what they want, when they wanted – that's when magic truly came into being. _

_Possibly the best and most encompassing manner to describe it would be that Prometheus had a number of contemporary rivals wandering the ancient world who not only didn't bother to steal fire from the Gods… but stole magic and became the Gods._

_Nameless people now, these contemporary rivals were a lucky handful of men and women who not only had the ability to perform magic, but possessed the intellect, intuition, and inspiration to control it. Slowly, these people emerged as Gods, Deities, Devils, and Angels._

_Have you ever wondered why certain words, now referred to as "spells" cause particular magical events? Where these words/spells come from? How the people who had no spells to start even begin? It was those wizards and witches that answered these questions._

_As to how they did it… that's where the study of runes comes into play._

_When magic practitioners first emerged there were no spells, only runes. _

_A rune is a symbol that literally captures the essence of an object, action, or for the more skilled crafters, an idea. _

_Let's say someone discovered and came to know a certain bird with uncommon familiarity and intuition and created a rune to conjure that bird. If another were to steal it, write the rune and imbue it with magic, it would not work for them. They themselves have to know that bird. _

_An interesting catch goes with this premise. Another person who holds a different outlook and perspective on that bird, could come to know that bird and make a different rune doing the same thing. _

_This same catch applies to cultures as well, which explains how the different runic alphabets were born._

_Cultures as a whole have different outlooks on the world, and over the ages developed many runes directly affected by those perspectives – runes developed with relatively the same perspective on the world constitutes an alphabet. Some alphabets are more complete than others with up to one hundred fifty letters such as the Chinese runic alphabet while the Nez Pierce has only seventeen._

_Individuals creating alphabets are far and few between, nearly unheard of._

Yet this was the memory of the guest lecturer's speech that Hermione mind kept wandering to time and time again as she pondered the top paper Harry had given her.

_Had he done it?_

She had to consider it, although logic did not point to it directly. However, long hours in academia had taught her to listen to her premonitions.

The front page was unlike any other she had seen in her studies of Harry's papers. That alone caused her a decent amount of consternation. This paper, given solely to her was different. It was unspoken declaration that Harry had given it to her for a purpose.

She should have known that it would be like this – Harry had always left the investigators of the murders with clues to figure it out.

Hermione's lips tightened in emotion and once more peered at the paper, determined to finally figure out Harry's cipher.

She could do this.

She looked first at the bottom right, one of the two areas that were drawn on. Her heart had jumped earlier upon finally recognizing not one, but three emblems. They were what originally put her onto her initial train of thought on runes.

She was well versed in runic characters – one of the best – and she instantly recognized the origins of the three characters intertwined in a circular embrace. Each was the first letters of the Mongolian, Slavic, and Himalayan runic alphabets.

Hermione took a deep breath. She could work with that. The only problem was that those alphabets barely constituted an alphabet. There were only twenty five or six 'letters' known for each language. They were generally considered unusable due to their unknown properties, high incompatibility when used with wards, and smallness of their numbers. Why had he put them?

Hermione took a sip of her tea and gazed a bit longer at them. The three figures were not even spelling (hence the origin of the use of "spells") anything. Not in the circular formation needed for wards, not in some sort of symbolic sequence, not in anything. It was nonsense.

Had he actually given her doodles to her?

Hermione took a larger gulp of tea than necessary and quickly dismissed her late night thought.

It was complete rubbish and she knew it – she had seen the look he had given her when telling her to look for the paper. That look was all business.

What had he been thinking? Hermione wracked her brain with practiced efficiency for what she knew of the languages... Himalayan runes were rumored to require the user, when making complex wards to activate portions, or 'rungs' of the ward part by part in order to successfully activate the ward. Had this any relevancy?

A leap of triumph came to her as she remembered a dominant Mongolian runic alphabet trait. Now she knew that this was what Harry had intended these three obscure runes for. Mongolians had been infamous for hiding portions of their wards, the means for activating it in an initial, unhidden and usually frivolous introduction.

_That's why the rest of the parchments are blank!_

With studious confidence she now remembered a dominant and noteworthy trait of Slavic ward making – the runes in the ward were read backwards, although it didn't matter where one needed to tap the wand to activate them.

These three symbols were telling her the rules to interpret Harry's language. The first rule was that each paper needed the one before it to be interpreted. The second rule was that she had to activate – somehow – the page before it to see the page after. The last rule was that she had to read it backwards.

She was biting her quill now but she hardly paid the bad habit any attention. Her eyes now looked at the second of the two figures. The main piece sat there silently with artistic elegance, full of the characters that the countless sheets Harry had filled in the past ten years were full of. It was directly in the middle of the sheet.

All of them were lined up in the formation of a single circle with ornate detail. A ward - the circular formation a dead giveaway. She had to activate this writing, written in the form of a ward, to see the next page. Simplistically brilliant. The sheets and sheets of paper she had gone through before were written as one would an essay. Harry must have done that on purpose so as people would not see his technique.

But he had given it to her.

Pushing away a strange feeling of foreboding, she continued on.

There seemed to be three types of symbols based on size. Seven large symbols were spaced equidistant apart while in between there were dozens of smaller characters. The largest symbol was a lightning bolt in the middle of the circle.

Hermione found herself completely motionless, her breath stolen from her as she began to wrap her mind around what exactly she was looking at.

To say Hermione was excited was a vast, vast understatement. To say she was also scared was a vast, vast understatement.

She still had no idea what any of the symbols meant, but she now knew the means in which they were concocted… they were runes, meaning they represented an essence of something.

_But what?_

The lightning bolt she supposed was obvious – it was Harry's patented symbol.

Hermione nearly dropped her cup of tea as it hit her. Suddenly all her earlier premonitions became truths as the realization of it all washed over her.

She stood up, looking at the paper as if in an intense staring contest. She couldn't be sure of a lot of the symbols but a good sum of them she _knew_ that had direct connections with Harry.

_Surely not…_

Some of the symbols – no, runes she corrected herself – had either a serpent or phoenix intertwined in it. _Of course…_ many runes when constructed in wards had additives that could be put in to add connective properties or fine detail much in the same way the romantic languages tend to have feminine and masculine endings.

Harry had used a phoenix and serpent to represent what she believed as good and evil. Her eyes swept over the rest of the runes recognizing other objects that were particularly keyed to Harry.

What Harry had done was create runes based on _himself_. But the question was… could the runes actually produce magic? Surely not… such a feat would be nigh impossible. People created runes describing the world around them, not on a such a complicated standard as a human being. Could anyone truly know themselves that well? She highly doubted it.

She threw the possibility out and continued on her thought process.

All of this explained why the experts couldn't figure it out. She was truly the only one besides Harry that had a chance to interpret this language. The reason why the symbols changed also made sense now. It was because his own interpretations changed. A bird's essence is not going to change but a person's… well, change was inevitable.

The decoding of this language was going to be nigh impossible but she now understood how to do so.

Her eyes immediately locked on the top rune in the circle – one of the seven large ones placed. It stood out somehow from the rest and depicted two feathers seemingly floating in the air. Almost transparent, a serpent wound itself silently around the feathers.

She could do this.

The rune had to be something deeply ingrained within Harry's past, perspectives, or beliefs. Her mind immediately flew to Buckbeak. Clearly this bird had had a large effect on Harry and was important on his mind. Hermione tried not to remember the closeness they had shared on that adventure's trials and tribulations. Did the rune represent loyalty? Flight?

Fifteen minutes later Hermione realized that it was not Buckbeak.

Inspiration struck her soon after - Flitwick's class. There were slight movement lines in the feathers showed feathers falling.

Flitwick's instructing voice came to her mind as if yesterday, "_Good good class! Now levitating isn't just the rise, but the fall as well! Practice levitating the feathers down, in a slow gradual descent… a gradual descent_."

Harry and her had gotten the descent part immediately and she had caught him smiling in appreciation. Harry had remarked in his third year, in a rare moment of verbal reflection, of his fond memory of that particular day.

Two of Flitwick's words hit her with deep gravity, the "gradual descent."

Hermione's eyes flicked to the lightning bolt in the middle.

_Oh._

The Gradual Descent.

What Harry had been drawing was indeed a title page, and the packet of papers underneath it was a book. But not just any book, if the lightning bolt had anything to say about it.

It was an Autobiography… of Harry.

The Gradual Descent.

Hermione was breathing very rapidly, tears of emotion falling every so softly.

_Oh Harry... What happened?_

Harry had created a pseudo-runic language that he used as a normal language - to be read in accordance to the rules he had shown her earlier.

Hermione couldn't help the tears as she hastily wiped them with the end of her sleeve.

Hermione hadn't slightest clue as to what the other symbols meant – and there were a lot of them. Clearly Harry had written a very descriptive title, which wasn't at all uncommon in the wizarding world.

Hermione could've quit the project now – she had enough information for the rest of the experts to work on it. But she knew she wouldn't. What she was working on was the autobiography of her first, and one-time best friend. A fallen angel in every sense of the word.

She knew she was finally, and utterly emotionally invested in the Harry Potter project. If she figured it out, and she was the only one who could, she could put closure of all types in many facets of her and Ron's world and the wizarding world in general.

A further 20 minutes revealed only a few concrete suspicions of symbols on the title page. She would have to dig deeper in order to intuit the runes there, they were clearly based on parts of Harry developed in times when she was not there.

She did notice that the runes were drawn with expert precision, the angles and very minute and equal spacing formatting. This usually meant that the wards possessed heavy mathematical aspects.

Hermione felt her earlier emotions clear as a deep sense of warning possessed her.

Mathematics within runes in wards essentially models and shapes magic with greater precision and accuracy then simply using runes representing a concept (without the finer details mathematics brings).

More importantly, it also allowed people who didn't fully grasp the concepts behind the ward to actually use it. This was also tied directly with wands and their respective lengths but Hermione deferred this train of thought for the moment.

What this basically told her was that unless she figured out the whole host of other runes' meanings, Harry could make her activate something that she would be completely unaware of.

However, Hermione was completely confident that Harry's runes did not actually produce magic. What Harry was doing was writing a story, not a ward, despite the similar set up and rules. She decided to take the chance and continue on to see the other pages. She needed them as cross-reference and further analysis for her deciphering, anyways.

Hermione searched for the start, or activation point of the ward. Her eyes caught a small whistle above one of the symbols, about fifteen behind the Gradual Descent one. It was the same one Madam Hooch wore… to start Quidditch matches.

Hermione sighed in painful remembrance. Figuring she would activate all of the pages, she touched her wand to the start symbol. Immediately Hermione let out a small gasp as she felt slightly weakened.

Hermione shook her head. It was late, things could easily be imagined. Perhaps she was more tired then she thought, and the activation process took more effort then she realized.

She analyzed the next page, also with the runes in a circle, for a decent amount of time before finding the whistle once more. Hermione continued the activation process, revealing the many pages into that night.

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Miles and miles away The Prisoner, Prisoner 19683, had stopped writing. The guards peering in looked with wary caution. The Prisoner never, ever, stopped writing at this time.

But he had. Not fifteen minutes ago he had slowly and cautiously stopped writing. He'd closed his eyes so only slits remained as he appeared to be in deep concentration.

A deep and resounding Cheshire grin slowly appeared on his face as he smoothly set his quill down in its resting place and reclined back onto his chair.

The grin had been replaced with a look of utmost satisfaction, almost religious fervor. He'd been this way ever since – for over an hour now. The guards, if they had ever been in such a situation, would have compared The Prisoner's face to one who had been lost in the desert, and finally saw water; or a person starved for weeks who suddenly saw food; or perhaps more relevantly, a wizard or witch who had had their magic held captive, suddenly feeling the sinewy nets holding it slowly untether one by one.

The Prisoner glowed with reverent appreciation and satisfaction.

Hermione had always done such good work.

He ought to thank her.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, here's the 3rd chapter. It's much different than the others. Where the others set up atmosphere and information, this one ignites the plot, so in other words... action. It also hints at an enormous portion of the plot that will tie in nicely (hopefully) with Harry's supposed crimes, runes, and the situation in general. Perhaps of equal importance, portrays a side of Harry that has not yet come out, but has laid dormant.

Chapter Four will have a unique look into his past. We'll see Dumbledore and a host of other key players in this fic.

As always, thank you for the reviews - I truly appreciate them. I write for my own pleasure and those kind enough to find some sort of entertainment in it as well, but don't get me wrong... the more reviews the merrier! Quick shout-outs to stellar reviews from _Vivian_ _Storm_, _Arish_ _Mudra Rakshasa_, _luvsanime02, hardware99, _and _elisa-didlittle_ in particular.

I have a completed outline of the story and unless a review is poignantly persuasive... it's going to stick the way it is planned. For those of you concerned about pairings or whatnot, once again I suggest simply reading and relaxing. There's nothing to be concerned about.

Enjoy.

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**The Prisoner's Cipher**

_Chapter Three_

_. . .  
><em>

Hermione had been in meeting briefs for the better of the last part of the decade. Needless to say she was well acquainted with them. Although... every once in a while the gravity of the meeting transcended the normal monotony.

This was one of those times.

The air was nervous, causing a palpable tension that seemingly either slowed or sped the words that came out of one's mouth.

Distinctly uncomfortable.

She half-listened to the nine people talking to her - each giving her the same exact prep talk as they had before.

However, something was indeterminably different this time, she was sure.

The presence of her efforts in decoding - currently residing in her folder she was holding - provided a gentle reminder. She had spent the better part of the past month pouring over them and had gotten tantalizingly far. However, she simply had not gotten far enough to get anywhere near the full story.

So here she was again.

The Aurors set to be on guard duty were casting the normal precautionary spells and activating the wards upon her to prohibit the upcoming interrogation from taking a bad turn. They were animatedly talking amongst each other, actively discussing her safety.

She was grateful for their administrations but was trying desperately not to feel anything but annoyance. She knew what this upcoming interrogation would require, and it wasn't the amount of spells and protections on her that would do it.

It would be the presence of a clear, concise, and artfully wielded intellect that would be her best weapon. Harry's used a sharp and expansive intelligence in a way that was disarming and inexplicably dangerous. She had been caught unawares of this side of Harry last time and had done everything she could to prepare for it. One did not face Harry with insecurities or half contrived thoughts and beliefs. She would have to be _ready_.

One calming presence offered her the atmosphere that she wanted before such a confrontation, and he was staring at her with an intense gaze across the room. While the other Aurors were fidgeting with her, he was merely staring at her in a way that said he _knew_ that it wasn't her physical body that would bear the greatest harm.

She smiled at him in a reassuring fashion and he gave a small smile back. An overwhelmingly grateful warmth spread through her as she continued her thoughts.

She still hadn't told him about the papers Harry had given her.

A small measure of guilt took of ahold of her but she pushed it away easily. There really wasn't much to tell him. She'd tell him everything after this meeting, when she could tell Ron with assurance what exactly she was working on, and whether it was hogwash or something bigger. This interrogation she was sure would bring this answer to the forefront. There was no point in telling Ron half conceived conjectures, which her translations essentially were at this point - particularly without more information.

Sure, that which she had translated was beyond amazing - it detailed an epic personal journey that literally teemed with partially translated stories of Harry and Dumbledore. She had only gotten the gist of them, but they told her enough that she wanted more, _needed_ more. The last portion of the translations were completely obscured to her - but there was no doubt that an enormous amount of evil possessed within those pages' stories. More than anything, there was an overwhelming presence of _death_ in those pages.

Hermione shook her head.

Nothing explained why the only portions she could translate or come close to were always enclosed within blocks of Harry's language in which she had absolutely _no_ clue what they were saying. But still she had activated the pages over and over again... trying to catch any sort of clue either within the magical construct of the pages or the phonetic trickery he used.

It was no use.

For some reason the story still maintained, what she intuited to be, a fluid and chronological order even with the largely non-translated blocks of runes.

When she had reached a point that told her she'd have to go to Harry for information that would allow more progress in her deciphering, she had cursed.

She was by no means a big enough fool to think that this wasn't done on purpose. His autobiography had been tantalizing – an intellectual and personal enigma that she craved to solve. But in the end, she knew that that only one person could help her get the full, true story.

Too many symbols were simply too far removed from her experiences with Harry. Oh yes, she could conjecture and hypothesize, but with this particular runic alphabet – Harry's – one could not simply guess. They had to _know_.

This simple fact had fired an iron resolve within her to prepare as much as possible for this inevitable confrontation. The painful memory of her last disastrous meeting coupled with the obvious danger Harry's presence procured provided the motivation she needed.

Once more she glanced down at the see-through ceiling and saw Harry. He was languidly sitting on his desk.

Not writing.

She pushed down the feeling of foreboding that threatened to overcome her composure.

A gentle, large hand on her shoulder heralded the comforting presence of her husband and she took his hand in hers. They both stared at their oldest friend, once greatest friend.

Fate had dealt them a strange, strange hand.

Hermione pushed open the door with composed authority.

"How'd it go?" Harry asked with a smile.

He stood there leaning against the desk, the picture of relaxation.

"Decent enough" she replied smoothly.

"And yet you find yourself back here…"

"As intended, I am sure."

Harry nodded and folded his arms against his chest, smiling.

"True, true…" he replied, and said no more.

They stood there for long moments and still Hermione did not reply. She would not rise to the silence he had set upon the situation. She wanted him to march to _her_ beat this time.

After a lengthy pause, as if reading the conversation's subtleties, Harry then replied, "Shall we sit then?"

"No," Hermione replied curtly "Let's stand. I don't have any need to stay here too long, there's no need to sit."

Harry nodded and chuckled agreeably, "Excellent, excellent… I completely agree."

Hermione paused, but continued on, looking to press her advantage.

"Harry, I'm not going to play games with you." She paused.

"Harry - What are you looking to get from all this."

It really wasn't a question more than it was a demand.

Harry peered at her behind his glasses, clearly aware that she knew he had been asked this question a million times before. She hated herself for asking such a terribly cliche question, but no others had asked it after given an Autobiography.

Harry seemed to overlook the question's overuse as he answered pleasantly, "I thought the title page would make that answer fairly obvious."

"You're telling me you've spent ten years perfecting a language to write an encrypted autobiography? That's hogwash Harry, and we both know it. I know what an Autobiography is, yet nowhere does that tell me _why_."

"Personal reflections perhaps? Boredom? Maybe even my means of socializing to the world indirectly? Does it really matter, Hermione?"

"No, no it doesn't, does it? That's what doesn't add up Harry, all these papers, all this time, to produce an autobiography? Given only to me?"

"Sounds like a plan to me" Harry replied with maddening simplicity.

"It's a terrible plan," snapped Hermione, "and it makes no sense."

"I'll give you that one."

Hermione huffed.

"Then you're going to have to give me something else Harry, some more information. You're in jail. You're without magic. You're just going to sit here for eighty more years anyhow, why not just tell us what we want?"

"And what do you want?"

"A confession."

"Now why would I do that? The fact that I only write when I'm held in this room gives me these generous quarters. Now tell me, who's really the desperate one here? The fact I'm allowed here is laughable in itself. Playing the simpleton really casts an ugly glamor on you, Hermione. Simply unsightly. A confession? I certainly don't have one. Surely you must remember that _I turned myself in?_ Something about that doesn't quite add up to me…"

"Then make it add up. Tell me."

"I did. Have you finished translating yet?"

Hermione bit her lip in frustration and Harry laughed appreciatively.

She took an authoritative step forward and looked into his eyes, "Harry. _What are you doing_. Because I _swear_ I'll just leave you and the papers alone just as I have the last ten years. You wouldn't want that would you?"

Harry's eyes narrowed but still he maintained his ironclad composure, "You think so, do you? Maybe _before_ you had started translating Hermione, maybe before. But now? You really think they'll let you off this case now that they know you're the only one who can crack my language?"

Hermione replied with slow caution, "I haven't told anyone."

Harry's look, although his smile never quite left his eyes, was predatory.

"I know."

Hermione held his gaze.

"In fact… I was counting on it."

Hermione felt a rising anger take her. She was not going to be led through this verbal sparring once more. His threats were empty.

"Really, Harry? Because I'm not going to play your games – whatever they are. You're sick, you're evil, and I am willing to bet my life on the fact that you are up to something, Harry."

She paused, catching her breath before continuing, "Because I have a feeling leaving this room right now – forever – is something you really, _really_ don't want me to do, Harry. I can do it and I will not hesitate to do so!"

It was her ace in the hole.

Harry merely stared at her.

"_Harry_. Start speaking, or else I leave. Now."

His smile never left his face but his eyes hardened and bored into hers. With his palms he pushed softly off of the desk, drawing himself up to his full height. The smoothness of the motion made her step back ever so slightly.

She watched as he began to pace in a circular fashion around her. He wasn't looking at her but seemed to be focusing on the ground with contemplative silence.

She willed herself not to turn so as to keep him directly in front of her. She knew trying to quiet her beating heart would be a fruitless endeavor, but she would not show weakness.

_Stay in control, stay calm… stay calm…_

He was nearing the fringes of her peripheral vision when he suddenly stopped and backed tracked a half a step.

His handsome features were set as though trivially confused but his eyes revealed vicious intent.

"I'm sorry, it must have slipped my mind Hermione… I can't seem to remember... what did you want to bet my involvement in something on?"

Hermione willed herself to show as little emotion as possible, which was difficult as her heart was in her mouth.

She was not going to answer that question even though she knew very well what the answer was.

A smile graced his face in dawning remembrance and nodded, "Ah yes… I remember now... Thank you anyhow, Hermione…" And he resumed his walk, this time disappearing completely from her sight.

Hermione felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle in fear. Suddenly, she felt movement on her hip and whipped around, "Harry! Get off of m– "

She screamed.

Harry stood there, still several feet from her.

He was pulling out her wand from her summoned wand holster, gazing at it in the white light of the room as if opening a luxurious gift.

She could feel the satisfaction radiating off of him, his mouth forming a subconscious smile.

With a start his eyes locked onto hers with barely contained glee, "Still willing to bet on that?" as his joyous laughs echoed throughout the room.

Hermione's body, mind, mouth, and everything in between refused to acknowledge each other.

"No matter though, no matter... you were right anyhow. For a variety of obvious reasons."

With practiced ease he shot a blue spell at the door, holding the spell longer than necessary as he relished in the feeling of casting it. A squelching noise emitted. Not a second later she could hear the guards vainly try to open the door.

Hermione still could not move, her mind spinning with the events transpiring.

"Tell you what Hermione, you just sit tight here a moment and we'll continue this conversation later" and he turned towards the door.

Immediately he performed a complicated circular motion around his body and a dark grey fighting robe that England well recognized adorned his lean, muscled form.

The door burst open and nine Aurors burst in, wands blazing. Barely able to register the sequence of events, Hermione managed to scramble to the far corner of the room to escape the crossfire.

A moan of despair reached her lips as she caught the identity of one of the Aurors streaming into the room.

Ron.

She watched the sequence of events with morbid fascination and trepidation, simply unable to accept the unexpectedness and improbability of what had happened.

_How had the wards fallen? _

He had summoned her wand and now was casting spells without any difficulty. A sheet of cold emotion encased her as she realized the answer to her question.

_The autobiography…_

It had been her. She had released Harry, she had done it all and she hadn't told anyone. The ramifications of this…

_Oh Merlin..._

Her body went limp with realization and she sat there in a stupor.

Harry raised his wand and immediately the incoming Aurors were blasted backwards with a white shock-wave of magic that made the very air crackle in violent protest. Ron and another Auror were thrown back through the doorway and the rest were bodily thrown against the room's walls. Harry completed the motion with an underhanded sweep and the section of floor beneath the Aurors burst open in a series of peppered explosions that created an unnatural and uneven surface.

Harry paced over to where he could direct spell fire from a more commanding position, all the while taking out a few of the Aurors laying prostrate on the ground with laser thin blue spells. The recipients did not move after being hit.

He was now in an athletic crouch, with his wand – her wand – drawn slightly back with elegant poise. His face was calm, expectant, and calculating.

Hermione had seen documentaries of cheetahs running after gazelles in the African grasslands or jaguars leaping for their prey in the jungles of South America. The _naturalness_ of their pursuit – the silent harmony found in the act of predators chasing prey as nature intended it was exactly the air Harry was exuding right now.

Flashbacks of the numerous battles in which she'd seen him fight against Voldemort's forces flew across her mind. A new and much more thorough wave of fear coursed through her body as she suddenly realized who exactly was standing in the middle of the room.

The First Lieutenant of the Light Forces now wielded his wand once more, commanding the field as he had been born to do. His dark battle robes fit once more in a comfortable embrace of the fighter beneath while his green eyes glistened with a combination of anticipation, intelligence, and cold hard fury.

As the War had gone on, it had become rarer and rarer that he left the field with anything less than victory.

Four Aurors lay prostrate upon the ground; they were not going to get up. The rest scrambled up and the light humming and variety of shimmering lights flickered up, heralding their shields coming into existence.

Harry did not wait for them to recover. His body never stopped moving as he shot spells at an unbelievable rate – keeping the Aurors on the defensive, slowly but systematically herding them into the one side of the room with uneven ground. Each of his spells were powerful enough to cause at least half of them to devote all of their attention to defense. The Aurors that broke formation or were caught too far away from the main contingent were sniped by Harry with cool and collected precision.

Soon it was only Ron and two other Aurors dueling Harry. They had managed to remove the unevenness Harry had placed on the floor but they were not faring well. Hermione could see why.

Harry's style was not only uncommonly smooth but his spell repertoire was for the most part unrecognizable, powerful, and cast silently. This, combined with his extreme athletic ability forced them to devote too many split seconds on avoiding spells instead of blocking them and returning one in favor. The ability to carry on advanced firefights was the ability to plan at least one step ahead, and that usually required knowledge of the current spell coming at you.

As one more Auror's head was thrown back in violent whiplash and slumped down to the floor, Hermione saw that there were only two fighters left - Ron and an older man that she knew to be Ron's partner, Roger Faban. She knew him to be an affable and highly skilled wizard. Both he and Ron had fought in the war and had been one of the more renowned fighters on their side. They gelled together and it showed, their ability to read each other's need showcased at this urgent time of need.

Harry no longer was casting spells from a vantage point and was steadily advancing on the pair. Ron's face was a mask of grim determination and Roger's bore a similar visage.

Harry's seemed almost pensive.

When Harry slowly lowered himself into a lower crouch, a feeling of morbid anticipation took ahold of Hermione.

Instantly a stream of multicolored spells spat out of Harry's wand in blinding succession. Ron and Roger responded by furiously shielding when possible and conjuring objects to take on the onslaught. Hermione thought they were doing fantastic and had even begun to hope; they had not yet been hit by a single spell – until she realized that in their furious defense they were now separated by at least a couple of feet.

_Oh no..._

Roger went down with a scream, his hand clutching his side as his consciousness was lost.

Hermione expected some sort of lull in the attack as there was only a sole defender left, and one with a heavy past with Harry as well. Didn't villains always talk to their victims before ending lives?

Her expectation was shot down violently.

Without even waiting for Roger to fall to the floor Harry whipped his wand and shot a massive banishing charm at Ron that seemed to fill the very room with its sheer volume and size, absolutely shattering Ron's defenses, plastering him against the wall like a rag-doll.

Harry straightened up slowly, standing tall amidst the room. Her wand flitted between his fingers in a spider-like manner as he looked upon Ron's crumpled form in grim fascination.

Hermione made to run to Ron but a snap of magic in front of her stopped her in her tracks.

"Stay put Hermione."

A second flash threw her back forcefully to the corner she had started to run out of.

At once Harry shot stunning spells at the motionless bodies and stopped once only Ron was left. Harry walked towards him and Hermione could not help herself.

"Don't hurt him! Harry, _please_!"

Ron was groaning in agonizing pain and Harry turned around, severe annoyance on his face.

"He's already hurt Hermione," snapped Harry, his seemingly always pleasant demeanor slipping for some reason, "stop being redundant."

Harry flicked his arm to lift up a portion of Ron's robes to reveal a severely broken arm and most likely a host of broken other bones unable to be seen so plainly.

"Although I'm not going to kill him, if that's what you're getting at."

Hermione stared at him with tears in her eyes.

"What do you think I am? A _murderer_?" Harry laughed softly, and levitated Ron so he was hovering in front of him.

Harry continued, a strange gleam in his eyes, his usually friendly and polite façade disconcertingly gone, long gone… "My needs, my worries, my _cause_ far transcends whatever trivial obstacles today throws at us… whether it be dear Ron here or _this_" and his hand gestured at the fallen Aurors dismissively.

"I need only one more thing."

He continued scanning Ron with his eyes, his customary mocking smile far gone from his face.

Ron's body could now clearly be seen to be broken in many places. Blood was coming out of his mouth and his eyes were barely focused while small, light whimpers were escaping his mouth.

Hermione could barely bare the sight of her husband in this state, with their once best friend staring at him like a piece of art in a museum.

His own art.

Hermione made to run to Ron, or at Harry, she didn't know, but found that Harry had partially petrified her - somehow anticipating her actions.

"_Harry_! Let him be!" Hermione yelled.

He still allowed her to talk?

Hate coursed through her veins.

"Ron – _Ron_ – I need you to focus," Harry said plainly.

Ron's eyes crusted with hate as he looked at Harry, the bodily pain he was in made his eyes lull momentarily to the back of his head every couple seconds.

Harry nodded appreciatively and almost whispered, "You wouldn't, perhaps, deign to simply tell me what I'm sure you know I'm going to ask you about, Ron?"

_His wand!_

Harry wanted to know where his wand was! It was the only thing that Ron would know that she did not. Ron had been one of the people in charge of Harry's possessions. It was so covert that he had not even told her what had come of Harry's possessions.

Ron merely spat blood at Harry, who coolly swatted it with his wand in her direction – landing with a silent splatter in front of Hermione. Hermione bristled further at the silent jab.

"Not entirely surprising, I suppose" said Harry in a low voice.

"Look at me Ron" and he brought his wand tip violently upwards.

Ron's face whipped forward and eyes were forced wide open, bloodshot. Immediately Ron's body went taut and his broken, mangled arm twitched as Harry gazed into his eyes with an intensity she could feel from across the room.

After what seemed like hours, Harry finally let go of his mental attack on Ron. Ron's body slumped from the invasion.

For the first time Harry looked somewhat troubled.

"That is… intriguing."

And with that, Harry snapped his wand and the light went out of Ron's eyes as he fell limply to the floor.

He turned away from Ron, lying listlessly on the ground and looked at her, "Time for a little jaunt, Hermione. I have a personal object I would love to have at my disposal once more, and trust me... after all these years I could certainly use a companion."

Trembling and unable to tear her tearful eyes from Ron's motionless body, she followed the orders Harry was giving her and took the spells he cast on her as though a zombie.

"We'll be going on an adventure, you and I, quite an adventure... Just like old times, no?" Harry said, his mockingly pleasant tone back once more.

It served as a dark contrast to the crumpled bodies and riddled room around them.

Unable to talk, tied up with ropes, and with a wide variety of disillusion and silence spells cast on her, she walked from the room with Harry in fearful trepidation.

.

.

.

The Holding Room was deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic in a portion that was nearly opposite of the Department of Mysteries underground. It only took four turns for her to figure out that Harry was heading towards her workplace.

That could mean a variety of things, none of them good.

Actually, anything he could want from there suggested something very, very bad.

None of this answered why he was bringing her with him. His hand had a firm hold on her as she briskly walked beside him. She had no doubt that Harry would not hesitate to decapitate her if she tried something.

Every once in a while Harry would cast a spell or two that would tell him the correct direction and more often then not he would cast spells that she had no idea what they were doing.

They had only come across three people.

They were currently in various forms of unconsciousness thrown haphazardly in hallways she and Harry hadn't traversed, providing an unfortunately clever and serviceable false trail.

Harry hadn't said a single word to her. He was in his element - silently contemplating, on the move, and thinking on his feet. Her part in this saga had yet to be played out.

Survival instincts screamed in her head and her heart pined for her to go to Ron whose health status she was sure was precarious. Could help get to him fast enough? Such thoughts and emotions could not be acted on now.

Hermione widened her eyes in sudden recognition. A familiar set of large, stone doors stood in front of her majestically. Their ancient stonework clashed angrily with the other masonry which was clearly made much later. The presence of these doors could only mean the entryway to one place.

The Veil.

No wonder Harry had found Ron's retrieved knowledge of the hiding place of his wand surprising.

As he had before, while detaining the unfortunate three ministry workers, he petrified her before walking up to the doors in silence. At once he pocketed her wand and began grasping the air around him as if playing an invisible, willowy musical instrument.

Several minutes passed by when Harry finally stood back from his strange administrations. Taking her wand once more he aimed it with breathless precision and shot a thin white spell at a singular spot on the large stone door.

He held it and at once imbued a surge of magic into it causing the thin spell to shine brilliantly, setting the entire hallway on fire with its blinding light. The spell began to burn a perfectly cylindrical hole into the door. Once the hole had been completely run through Harry snapped the spell off and stepped back two more steps and watched with intense concentration.

Silence.

Hermione had begun to doubt Harry's work when the sound of thousands of mechanical parts began clicking and falling into their respective places. The sound of an enormously large deadbolt could be heard shifting.

Silence once more reigned rampant.

Harry walked forward and with a simple wave of his wand the doors opened with no noise.

There, upon the dais, sat The Veil shimmering with its deathly silence and iridescence. Natural light fell down just enough from the towering ceiling to slightly illuminate the scene. There, set upon the circle, was a wooden structure connected with all types of wires, cauldrons, and sensors. The center of all the testing contraptions was Harry's dark wand held with careful bindings.

The Death Stick.

A shiver ran through Hermione as it always did upon gazing upon Harry's wand. It's origins were unknown - no one knew where he had gotten it - but it was powerful. Very powerful. The name bequeathed to it had several rumored origins.

Once, when Harry had been thrown back in a duel versus Voldemort he had lost handle of his wand. An ally had rushed to pick up his wand even as Harry was yelling at him not to.

The man had screamed upon touching the wand and immediately dropped it muttering something along the lines of "…so cold... so cold..." Harry had scrambled over and snatched the wand resuming the massive duel with his arch nemesis.

The man had died later that day but it was not known whether it was from the battle or that strange occurrence. Hermione had not given this further thought till now.

Hermione gazed at the wand with closer scrutiny and it seemed to gaze back at her challengingly.

It always seemed to whisper insidious thoughts, vengeful murmurs, and veiled threats. A wand whose wood was dark as night - reflecting no light but eating it with silent greed.

Whoever had thought to test, or do whatever they were doing, The Death Stick with The Veil had been very, very clever to do so.

Intriguing indeed.

Harry apparently thought so as he ponderously looked over the construct. Taking special care he shot numerous spells at various points at it, and with one last spell summoned his wand to his feet.

At once he shot four spells at his wand that Hermione recognized - he was removing any wards or tracking spells on it.

Harry went to pick up his wand when he froze and slowly straightened up.

Hermione watched with untold fascination, thanking Harry for petrifying her in such a great surveying position.

True emotion - completely sincere and raw - etched itself upon Harry's face as he stared at The Veil in something between shock, fear, and sadness. She could not tell. His body was rigid, breathing heavy.

He seemed to be waging a silent argument with The Veil that he was losing. More like he was being chastised, or yelled at.

Suddenly Harry tore his face away from The Veil, his face hardening into a stony expression and stooped with a quickness born of desperation and picked up his wand.

His wand.

Not her wand, but _his_ wand. This distinction she could not note with more emphasis and was proved thus when a single sweep completely incinerated the experimental contraption to dust. He made his way towards her, robes billowing to the exact wind of The Veil's shimmering drapes.

The fury and raw emotion in his eyes evident for her to see... and left her extremely confused.

Harry had been in a different mood after that. He'd been even terser and rougher than he had before in guiding her through the Ministry's bowels.

As they walked, they met no one, and it was with no small amount of surprise that the pathway they were taking was headed straight towards the Atrium.

Harry pushed them into a maintenance closet.

"Hermione look at me."

She had no choice, the closet was stiflingly small. She could literally feel his body heat and was painfully aware of his close proximity. The fact that she was bound and in such small quarters left a profoundly fearful and sexual feel to the situation.

She looked at him, fearing what she'd see.

"We're going to walk to the south eastern circle - yes, the apparation point - I will be taking off your bonds and a few of my other precautions. Nod if you understand."

Hermione nodded, and her body snapped open as her bonds were broken. She used the degrees of freedom to shift further from Harry, closer to the wall.

Harry just looked at her, for the first time in hours, with a glimmer of his twisted humor. Clearly at her expense.

"There will probably be no one out there - it being a Saturday - but if there is I expect you to do nothing. In fact, do nothing regardless if anyone is out there. If you do anything other than walk to that circle and look natural, I will do as I see appropriate. Do you understand? Answer me verbally."

"Yes."

Harry's hair immediately changed to a lighter brown form and a few other facial transfigurations occurred that did not mask his identity. But it certainly was enough to elude the casual onlooker - which everyone certainly was if there was anyone out there.

But if she were to just do something for them to look a little harder...

Hermione's eyes tightened in motivation. She would cause a commotion, escape, and go to Ron - Harry could wait, he couldn't be taken down anyhow without a complete task force, or more.

Harry looked at her with careful scrutiny. She was consciously practicing Occlumency and was certain it would at least sense an intrusion.

Harry led her out of the closet and made their way to the door that would open to the atrium.

"One moment."

Harry closed his eyes, moving his black wand as though placing a star on a christmas tree.

Hermione steeled herself for the upcoming moment.

Harry pushed open the door and beckoned for her to go first. She stepped through with purpose. To her overwhelming thankfulness there were three people walking across the atrium.

She looked back at Harry, he was directly behind her wand out pointing discreetly at her back. She just needed a distraction...

They were 5 feet or so from the apparation point and Hermione was willing to do something drastic when a sudden clacking noise occurred to her left.

She saw Harry swing his wand towards the direction and her heart leapt in anticipation. Immediately she rolled to her right and stood up flailing her arms in a beckoning fashion, doing anything - whatever - to cause the scene some general alarm and attention. Her voice had been silenced but her legs, arms, and eyes were free to convey what they wished.

Her movements should have worked, the people were looking straight at her.

Yet they kept walking, eyes looking straight ahead, oblivious of her nonverbal pleas.

Her hands dropped in defeat, flabbergasted.

Still the unfeeling people walked on.

Harry's arm swung under hers and firmly ushered her the final foot or two. He was strangely calm and not at all flustered by the situation. They stood in the circle for a second.

Harry waved his wand and the people disappeared.

She looked up in disgust.

"Just a simple trust test," he said, a strange look in his eye. A slight gleam in his eye heralded the return of his sickeningly pleasant facade.

No one was in the atrium. No one ever had been.

The tell-tale feeling of side-along apparation took a hold of her as she internally reeled at once again being outdone. She needed leverage, but before that, she needed information. It was her last thought as her world went black.

.

.

.


	4. Chapter 4

Here's Chapter Four. This chapter will fill in Harry's past and hint even farther at his intentions. Chapter five, which is essentially the second half of this one, will provide enormous clues as to why the hell he is the way he is and what/why he's done/not done before. After that it's all forward, all the pieces will be set.

This is a chapter that is also - hopefully - a remedy to what I hate about a lot of mysterious!Harry's out there in that the plot, his actions, and the complexity is all there, but when one really looks at Harry as a character, he lacks _depth_. I'm hoping my story has that, and this chapter and the next are crucial to adding that dimensionality.

As always, please let me know your thoughts - I read all comments and this chapter was exceedingly complicated to write. Regardless, I appreciate the reviews already given, they've been fabulous.

Again, particular shout outs to Vivian Storm, Arish Mudra Rakshasa, lazyguy90, Hibari Hanakoganei, and luvsanime02 for their in-depth and stellar reviews. Also I must mention the reviewers at DLP that provided much needed critiquing to the chapter there. This story will always have a chapter or two there ahead of here. Official chapters (aka the final version) are posted here though.

Several reviewers have let it be known their disbelief that Ron and especially Hermione would give up so easily on Harry. Remember - Harry left them without really telling him his intentions and never ended up doing so. It was about three years until they even saw him again. Their faith was never lost - not during those three years, not during the war, and not after - even when their confusion at his silence and aloofness increased. Then when the crimes started happening... it was only when Harry was taken in and the deaths stop did their faith truly fall. This has all been within the text so far, but these next three chapters should flesh it out for you all quite nicely. Hopefully!

Alright, enough talk.

Enjoy.

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

_Chapter Four_

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Hermione woke up to unfamiliar walls and a familiar set of green eyes.

She was sitting on a chair in front of some sort of desk, which was also in front of Harry. She had never known a sense of deja vu being a painful one, but -

"I try," Harry said, interrupting her thoughts, "to not let the irony of this situation overrun my sensibility."

In an act of subconscious self preservation she made a quick movement to reach her wand, but at the last second resisted the urge, knowing it would not be with her.

Harry simply stared, a cold smile upon his face.

The irony was indeed hard to ignore.

The fogginess was beginning to clear in her head. Harry did not press for more conversation and she used the lull to calm down and look around.

She found herself in an immaculately kept study - ancient books lined the walls and one or two luxuriously decorated arm chairs accented the room. Folders of recently written parchment sat in age-old bookshelves, their titles too small for Hermione to read. Heavy wooden rafters loomed over as though spirit guardians, hinting at the solidarity and steadfastness of the place she now sat in. The place was exquisite.

_Was it Harry's?_

Harry's hands were steepled and his expression amused. He was dressed plainly and in a manner that was distinctly muggle - a simple dark tee with what looked to be simple dark jeans - nothing noteworthy. His longish hair framed his face which bore no glasses.

The effect was predatory and more than a little disconcerting.

This situation was frightfully similar to her initial interrogation of him weeks ago, except with the tables turned. There was, she mused, something about Harry's attitude or persona today - something was off.

This she could tell right away. Before he had been seemingly playful, a leering smile always gracing his lips - his verbal jabs almost more for his own enjoyment then for the rational reasoning she now understood... But now... the smile was still there, but the playfulness had a darker, insidious overtone to it.

This was a side of Harry she knew she had not seen before.

"Hermione," he said while his amused expression dropping a bit, "I understand that the recent events are rather traumatizing, but I'm going to ask this once."

Hermione looked up in surprise.

_What more could he want from her? _

"I need you to _concentrate_."

His tone was soft - almost musical in its hushed, whispering syncopations. It wasn't angry, impatient, or irritated - it was _dangerous_.

"Time," he continued, "is not on our side."

"Time?" she said, her voice raspy from the recent events, "is not on _your_ side?"

"Time is not on anybody's side, but it is certainly not on mine" he replied calmly.

A rising feeling of stubbornness, ambition, and strength of will began to creep up into her mind - Hermione was beginning to feel herself.

"And this has nothing to do with the manhunt homing in on you? We know where you frequent!"

"They're not going to find me," answering her apparently enormously trivial question, "Or you, for that matter, and I certainly don't plan on turning myself in this time."

His fingers rapped smoothly upon the desk in a slow, calculating cadence.

"In fact, I would wager enormous sums on putting their short side of time in the same lot as yours."

Hermione peered at him, questioning, his last statement making no sense whatsoever.

"Yours of course," he continued, "being distinctly more volatile, and on a personal level much more relevant. Perhaps you might make more sense of it if you thought of the whole situation as a timer, rather than time."

He was crazy.

She didn't answer, but Harry didn't wait and continued, his blasted smirk once more making its way onto his features.

"Besides, are you positive they'll search for you? Seems to me once they perform some elementary reverse engineering on the broken wards..."

Cold, hard fear gripped her heart as his insinuations' truth rang hard in her ears.

"And a pity, such a _pity_ that you didn't tell anyone... now there's such a suspicious overtone to everything... an old best friend... refusing to partake in a case for ten years, suddenly coming back, and now the prisoner escaping... how very _interesting_..."

He laughed and leaned upon the desk forcing her to back up involuntarily into her chair. His features were set in an earnest, disarmingly sincere fashion - only the hard gleam of his eyes protected her from being convinced.

"_Thank you._"

Hermione didn't know whether to cry, scream, or something else in between. He was _such_ a fucking bastard. Couldn't he have just let her and her life be?

"I don't see what this has to do with me" she replied, incensed. The desk she sat behind seemed so little.

"I would almost say it has everything to do with you. Inextricably so." He stood up, taking his dark wand and waving it with almost lazy conviction. If she hadn't felt the slight shock wave from the magic he produced, she might have thought he was swatting insects.

At once she could hear the sound of something very, _very_ heavy lift up from the ground in another room. He was summoning something - something huge.

An irrational fear possessed her and Hermione made to do something - move, run, anything before Harry could execute whatever he was doing - and was surprised as she stood up. She was free from any type of binding.

Her logical side came to the forefront of her mind as she stood, Harry's back to her still.

_What now?_

She was in an unknown part of the world, in an unknown room in an unknown house with arguably the most powerful wizard in the world standing in front of her only path of escape which had an enormous object coming through. Oh, and she had no wand too.

Tentatively, she sat back down, will intact, but properly chastised.

Harry looked back briefly, holding her gaze for a strong moment, then returned his concentration to his task at hand.

She felt chilled, and was irrationally glad she had chosen to sit down.

The large object Harry was moving in glided soundlessly through the door, hovering one or two inches above the ground. A flowing dark red sheet obscuring what the object was.

It was set down with a lover's caress, only the softest of noises emitting when it was laid down upon the dark wooden floor. Harry smoothly took his seat and looked at her. He had the tracings of a smirk upon his lips that made absolutely no headway into his eyes.

"I ask that you pay that no attention to that right now, Hermione. Again, what I need you to do is _concentrate_. Look at me."

And she did.

Hermione looked at him as if for the first time. Something was definitely off... now she was absolutely positive of it.

"Hermione. We've got but a short time to go through what I want to. If you don't focus, terrible things will happen to you and many others. If you do, then the terrible things _might_ happen. If you put any trust in anything I say, trust this."

Hermione nodded. What else could she do?

He suddenly smiled, "Pretty melodramatic, no?" And he laughed, harsher in tone then she was used to.

"Melodramatic or not, it is most certainly true. You can put money on that, although it's up to you whether you take humor from it or not."

Hermione didn't even deign to reply - the combination of confusion, repulsion, and general apprehension making that decision an easy one.

"But most importantly, _most importantly_," and his wand seemed to pulse, "above all else, when you see whatever I show you and learn whatever I teach you... no matter what feelings it may conjure - no pun intended - _know_ me as the person you knew me to be these past ten years."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Hermione almost laughed, "Harry, please... _please_, this of all things will not be a - "

"Promise me." No smiles or laughs this time.

Hermione, at this point, had reached the mentality she knew she needed. She had been fooled, captured, and had had loved ones hurt. She had nothing to lose, nothing to fear. She took the ridiculousness of Harry's request in full stride.

"I'm not sure what promises mean to a murderer, Harry."

"Perfect. Keep that mentality. But promise anyways."

Hermione nonchalantly replied, almost as a jokingly, "I promise."

Harry looked at her as though reprimanding a child on something one knew they'd do again, but apparently let it pass. A sweep of his wand brought several objects on the table.

Parchment. Quills. And a wooden cup.

Hermione looked up at Harry quizzically, who was once again smiling pleasantly.

"What do you know about rune making."

"Enough to know, say... that a set of runes made in the same mindset will produce a language. Also - coincidentally, that a language, when used correctly as a ward can dupe a once loyal friend into escaping from prison all the while beating his other old best friend to a -"

Hermione's lips and temper moved without a sound.

Harry had silenced her.

A quick snap of magic in front of her burned the air near her eyes causing her cheeks to sting.

"Not the time to joke, I'm afraid."

Hermione could feel the tendrils of her anger get the best of her.

"Have you ever made a rune?" A command, not a question.

Hermione had another retort upon her mouth but she caught his eyes flash dangerously and noticed his dark, sinister wand roll slowly in his fingers. She replied honestly.

"No."

Harry looked at her with a slightly nefarious smile, "Well today you're going to learn how to make your first."

He waved the parchments and quills to the side, so only the cup remained.

"What do you see."

"A cup."

Harry blinked and looked at her with distaste, and said "Why."

Hermione really, _really_ didn't feel like getting lectured by her captor.

"Because it is. You pour something in it, and you drink out of it. A cup."

Harry rolled his wand in his fingers.

"You're well versed in translating, I am aware, but creating requires a further intuitive, skillful step. It's the same as the difference between reading a language and actually speaking it."

Hermione remained silent, the subtleties of what Harry was speaking of was beginning to dawn on her.

"It _is_ a cup," she said slowly, her mind whirring, "and it's used to contain liquid, and dispense it."

"Dispense where?"

"To one's mouth."

"Always?"

"No..." Hermione was a bit uncertain on this one.

"But this particular one, yes?"

"Yes."

"So it would be something that makes this particular cup unique, then? What else?"

Hermione took her time on this question, years of academic prowess telling her that this question required a well thought out and intricate answer.

"It's made of... aluminum, I think. The rim is faded with use, but only the portions ninety degrees from the handles. The handles are also slightly faded and there are chips there, and there..."

Harry nodded, "So its safe to say you _know_ this cup - its intention, uniqueness, purpose, and overall entity?"

Hermione again paused for thought before replying, "Yes."

His face somewhat amused, Harry continued, "You're forgetting one feature. You've described the cup, but anything, whether it be corporeal or no, cannot exist without the thing you have forgotten."

Hermione thought about it for a good while but could not come up with it. Harry answered for her.

"It's shadow. A shadow does not exist without that which creates it, and the likewise stands as well. A shadow possesses something of the thing it represents. For the cup, it is merely a shifting shape of physicality and light. But the shadows of thoughts, or perhaps something as large and complex as _death_... things get interesting."

His later insinuations were unsettling, but she focused on the shadow of the cup in her head. Still, she felt her ability to wrap around the cup's essence was quite good.

Harry glided over the parchment and quills in front of them.

"Now, following that train of thought, what universal thoughts, emblems, symbols might represent those qualities of a cup you so described?"

Harry was right, she really did need concentration for this. What symbols could be used for representing a cup other than... a cup?

"Um..."

"Perhaps feeling the cup might offer some clues. Put it in different lights. Does it reflect certain lights differently? Do the reflected lights, when spinning the cup, flit in a certain fashion? Drop it on the floor, on the ground, in sand... how might these test scenarios reflect its character? What does its shadow do in those situations?"

Hermione looked at Harry with sudden understanding.

_I don't know the cup at all._

Harry gave her a look that told her he knew she now understood, and said "You would never make a rune for a 'cup,' but rather use a set of them to represent it. When used in a warding scheme, it can then be used to conjure it."

Harry took a piece of paper and a quill. He drew three figures in a triangular fashion - rope, a trident, and some string twisted in ways that defied depth perception... it looked like two strings but was actually one.

"You recognize these?"

She did, and replied "Greek. At least two of them."

Harry nodded, no sign of satisfaction on his visage. What he was doing was simply because he had to.

Apparently.

"All three of them actually. The rope means something is being bound, or in this case, held. The trident as you should also know, represents water, or liquid. The last one means _duality_. It is a rare rune that perhaps you haven't come across. It refers to the fact a cup serves to both hold and dispense water."

Hermione nodded in understanding - the intertwining strings actually being one made sense now.

"Have you ever noticed a strange use of duality in the Greek culture? In all cultures? Hermes is the patron God of thieves yet the guardian of the house. Apollo is the healer of men yet holds the title of the bringer of the plague. Artemis is the Goddess of Hunt yet the protector of wildlife. This duality is a common theme to all languages - no language can exist without a rune such as this one. A complete set of runes will never magically produce anything without the existence - in one form or another - of this rune.

He leaned even closer, his expression strangely serious, "_Nothing meant to be in this world can exist without the full understanding and incorporation of duality._"

Harry had spoken the last part with such emphasis, such terrible conviction that Hermione did not reply in any way. Some statements are made to be listened to, not commented on, and this was one of them. She had no idea why he was imparting this knowledge, but she knew that what he had just mentioned had everything to do with it.

Harry looked away from her and touched his wand to the runes and instantly a light flare of magic emerged and a cup identical to the one already there popped into existence.

"Note that even if you were to try this now, with this correct and working formation of runes, I doubt you would be able to get it for a while. You must truly grasp the existence, purpose, and relationships this cup holds with its environment. It takes practice. You might even need to incorporate more runes to get the grasp of it more fully."

Harry stood up and walked over to his summoned object. He beckoned for her to follow and she stood up and did. A light twitch of his wrist and the red curtain fluttered off and landed elegantly on the desk. Her eyes widened in recognition.

_A pensieve!_

Hermione's mind reeled with the possibilities that the pensieve's existence could entail as she stared at the pensieve for long moments. But then she noticed Harry gazing at her, and it made her stop all trains of thought as she quickly looked right back at him.

Humans shouldn't look at other humans the way he was looking at her.

The way he was gazing at her... Chills rippled softly on the nape of her neck. He was analyzing her in some way, latent with nefarious intent.

He suddenly shook his head, as if ridding himself of a bad memory and Hermione thanked the Gods for the release of his inscrutable, painful gaze.

Harry took a moment to collect his thoughts or gather himself before continuing.

"You... you are..." he was still trying to get a grip of himself, "about to get the explanations you've wanted for a long time."

The look was still in his eye, but fading.

"...with one stipulation - do not _ever_ ask me why I'm doing this, only ask on what you see... and even then, be selective... at your own peril."

It looked as though he was going to say more, but after a strange momentary hesitation he simply pushed the lid of the pensieve open with a gentle nudge of his wand.

The watery reflections of the swimming memories inside cast itself as shadows across the dimly lit room. The light made Harry's face look craven, and every bit of the insane that many people had maintained he was.

Locking the pensieve's lid in place, he looked back at her with the memory's emitted light still dancing across his face in a rampant, satyr frenzy.

"_Concentrate._"

It was the only thing he said as he made his way to the exit. Hermione's eyes followed his dark form and watched as it disappeared behind the heavy wooden door slowly closing behind him.

She could see nothing of the room he had walked into.

The tell-tale signs of magical and mechanical locking filled the room for several seconds until silence overtook it.

Hermione stood still.

For a second, she contemplated looking around the room first - or doing anything other than what he told her to do - but his tone, his suggestions, and her overall curiosity and intuition told her to go to the pensieve.

So she did. As she slowly walked over, she noticed something she hadn't before.

_The pensieve was Dumbledore's_ .

She recognized it from his office. The stretching phoenixes used their stone wings to hoist the memories up in an eternal embrace, amidst intricately patterned carvings.

_How close had Harry been to Dumbledore?_

She set her hands upon the ledge of the pensieve. Literally hundreds of memories were flitting, swimming about in a swirling, transfixing manner. Only several glowed with unnatural brightness.

These were the ones he wished her to see.

They swam together as a school of fish, sometimes disappearing into the depths of the pensieve but always resurfacing with greater frequency then the others.

One of the memories gleamed the brightest. As was the whistle in Harry's runes, this was the start.

Harry had been slightly off today. Today had shown, albeit in a subtle, undertone manner, a side that she'd never seen before and did not understand at all. Hopefully these memories would shed some light on the matter.

With no small amount of trepidation, Hermione deftly touched the shimmering memory with careful precision. She was instantly torn from her world and into the memory Harry had given her.

.

.

* * * _The First Memory * * *_

_._

_._

She recovered from her disorientation quickly, and found herself in a room she didn't recognize.

It was nondescript, a little on the old side but clean and roomy. If the woodwork had anything to say about it, it was not the same place she had just been at.

With a start, she noticed Harry and Dumbledore facing each other on opposite sides of a table, a yard or so apart.

A rush of emotions hit Hermione, for seeing her old headmaster once more was a pleasant, pleasant surprise. He had been the towering pillar of humble power, the seemingly immovable force of good amidst a sea of evil, he had been the utmost driving force in remedying wizarding crises across across so many years. The last War against Voldemort was one of them, a wizarding calamity of epic proportions that Dumbledore had once more been at the forefront of.

Hermione's eyes tightened with emotion in remembrance... Dumbledore's tragic and horrific death had traumatized everyone. It had, however, proven to be the turning point in the war for a variety of reasons. She would soak up all she could of her beloved Headmaster in this memory, for she missed him.

His crystal blue eyes gazed just as brightly as she remembered them.

The world needed him badly - his quiet reassurance and ministrations offered peace and calm to a world that had barely acknowledged it, but direly needed it. His missing presence would always be felt.

Her eyes drifted to the other occupant in the room, quietly sitting across from Dumbledore - the young Harry Potter.

He was somewhere around the age of sixteen. The innocence of his youth a sharp and painful contrast from presence that surrounded him today.

_The same glasses, the same silent, pondering look that he always had..._

Harry was listening intently to Dumbledore.

"Try and think of _why_ it happened, not just how it _felt_. You're emotionally driven, which is nothing to be ashamed of. But the moment you can compartmentalize and draw out skills in a structured manner, particularly on whim... the ability to optimize your potential increases greatly."

Hermione had never really seen Dumbledore in teacher mode. But from these first few words she could tell he was magnificent - he possessed the rare ability to connect unparalleled skills with rudimentary basics.

Not to mention he had a grandfatherly tone, which always helps one's teaching ability.

"Now try again."

Harry pointed his hand - her heart lurched a little as she saw him aiming at a cup - and grimaced slightly in concentration.

Nothing happened.

Multiple more tries and still nothing happened. Harry seemed to be trying to use different gestures, jabbing strengths, and even sitting positions but nothing happened.

"It's in the mind, Harry, not the body."

Harry nodded, his face in careful scrutiny.

Multiple tries amidst Dumbledore's slight sipping of tea noises produced nothing more.

Harry was beginning to get severely aggravated and jabbed quite violently once more and the cup shot upwards, caught up in his overzealous levitation charm.

Dumbledore swiftly stopped the cup before it was obliterated on the ceiling.

Harry looked up at him expectantly, breathing somewhat heavily.

Dumbledore simply shook his head slightly, a small smile upon his lips, "No Harry... emotion governed that spell - logic and a solid methodology had no part in it."

Harry spoke for the first time, the youth in his voice causing painful remembrance in her ears, "But sir, what logic? I am casting a spell - I have intent, wand motion, and emotion... there shouldn't be anything more. When I got it to work I was angry, and _didn't_ think..."

"Layers, Harry... layers. Complex branches of magic - wandless being one of them - requires layers of intellectual platforms. Intuition and emotion play an integral part, yes, and may burst through the intellectual subtleties on such occasions as now. But the ability to fully wield what potential your body has given you, _when_ you want - requires, at least in the initial stages, a logical mindset."

Harry nodded in agreement, still working through Dumbledore's words in his head, "I... I actually think I understand sir, but... I really don't know how to start."

"One generally doesn't know how to start when they're at the wrong starting point," smiled Dumbledore, "Think now, Harry. What is the fundamental difference between wandless magic and magic with a wand?"

"The wand..." Harry answered insecurely.

"Which is a what?"

Hermione could see that Harry very much wanted to answer "wand" once more, but he held his retort back and thought about it.

"Well, it's like that book you gave me a couple weeks ago said, sir. It's a conduit. A channel from our core to recipient."

"_Excellent_, Harry, excellent... so when you're removing the wand - "

"You're removing the channel!" exclaimed Harry, interrupting Dumbledore in his excitement, "So I should think more on the lines of a physical - or something - link straight from my core to the recipient... but... do I even need to do the wand motions?"

"A good question, and the probably unsatisfactory answer is that it depends. The trend is generally the more complex the spell, the more likely it is the wandless wizard must use the motions. It all depends on one's ability to visualize and thoroughly wrap their mind around what the spell is doing."

"Then... then the wand is almost like cheating then? Like a shortcut?"

"If you wish to view it like that, yes. But more than anything, it can be deemed more of a crutch."

Harry began practicing once more, still with no effect, but with a much more calm and determined face. Dumbledore meanwhile kept a watchful eye and busied himself writing in a small notepad.

Hermione unfortunately could not see the notepad's contents, but when she moved to get into a position behind Dumbledore as to see it, he suddenly put it away.

Harry had levitated the cup, this time in a much more controlled fashion. Dumbledore beamed.

"Excellent Harry," he said to Harry, who was grinning with satisfaction, "do you remember the process that it came about?"

"Yes! I do! It's - "

"With conceptual processes," interrupted Dumbledore with a knowing look, "especially personal ones such as these, it's sometimes better to prove its existence through demonstration rather than verbalizing."

Harry at once gestured slightly - without the proper wand movements - and the cup once more stood still. Undeterred, Harry took a moment to think and once again tried.

The cup hovered, slightly spinning, in the air between them.

"Good, good... now practice that untill it's second nature, till the thinking process becomes an un-thinking one, so to say."

Harry nodded happily, the thrill of success still imbuing his motions with glowing vigor. Dumbledore made to leave, but Harry spoke up.

"Sir... if I were to, say, shoot a stunning spell out from my wand... a red light would emit from it correct?"

"Yes, Harry."

"And if I were to cast it wandlessly it would come from my hand?"

"If you so stipulated it within your casting mentality, then absolutely."

"So... could I theoretically cast it from any part of my body... say, my knee?"

Dumbledore laughed quietly before intoning, "Yes. Perhaps you could demonstrate?"

Harry smiled and concentrated. For a few seconds it looked like Harry was trying to do a very awkward stiff jig. In short, he looked ridiculous and Hermione couldn't help but laugh out loud.

She had never seen Harry act so silly.

Harry too was laughing, "No such luck Sir, perhaps you could show me?"

Dumbledore smiled, and shook his head, "No Harry... I don't think so. Some curiosities are better left off with today's youth I'm afraid..."

Harry, a little chastised, said "I'm sorry sir, it was ridiculous of me to ask."

"Don't be sorry, Harry. Although you should know that a wand - besides some other mechanics having to do with runes - as well as, say a finger, serves as a focal point for one's magic to channel through. The more natural a focal point, the easier it is to mentally make the channel. This is why a "stick" or a hand will offer the ease that a knee can't provide. One doesn't aim or point their knee very often."

Dumbledore stood up from his sitting position and grabbed his tea and saucer. Walking towards the door Harry managed to say "Thank you Sir... I learned a lot today."

Dumbledore smiled as he stood at the threshold of the doorway.

"One more thing Harry."

"Yes, Sir?"

Turning slightly back towards Harry, he shifted his right leg and immediately a green spell shot out of - Hermione couldn't believe it - his knee and hit Harry square in the stomach. It caused Harry to gasp for breath, although Hermione couldn't quite tell if that was because of the spell or his laughing. She herself was laughing quite enthusiastically.

How long had it been since she laughed? It felt amazing.

"One last thing Harry," Dumbledore said amidst his large smiles, "You may... as you progress, deem to try to shoot spells out of various parts of your body. Without going into lewd particulars, I feel it necessary to tell you that certain body parts emitting magic can be _very_, very precarious... for a variety of reasons."

Harry's eyes widened as he cottoned on to what Dumbledore was insinuating.

"Be careful." Dumbledore said with a mock-serious face.

Smiling, she watched as Dumbledore closed the door behind him while Harry - who was laughing even harder - cleaned up after his lessons.

Her last thought as she was being pulled from the memory was that she had absolutely no idea why Harry had chosen this memory... if anything it had been quaint, _cute_ even.

_What had been the point?_

Her vision went black as a whole new environment surrounded her.

.

.

_* * * The Second Memory * * *_

.

.

Spellfire temporarily blinded her, causing her to trip and fall onto hard stone. Spells shot at a rapid rate lit up the stone cavern around her - she was in a cove of a sort - the fresh, salty smell of the sea overtaking her senses. It was essentially a cave tucked in on the edge of the sea.

Light from the sea some two hundred feet away lit up the area but dimness still prevailed. A particularly bright spell lit up the area entirely revealing, once more, Harry and Dumbledore, who were dueling fiercely.

Harry was older, but not by much. The tracings of filled out facial hair and the high cheekbones were just beginning to come to prominence. Seventeen? Eighteen? Sixteen still? It was always so hard to tell with teenage boys.

Regardless, he had progressed enough to be extremely competent at wandless magic, only voicing his spells when doing a more complex piece of magic or simply slipping in situations of desperation.

He was doing remarkably well. His spells seemed to be fast, sure, and aimed with spot on accuracy. His exceptional agility provided him the last minute defense when his spellwork faltered. He also refrained from the amateur mistake - when facing a more skilled opponent - of casting an over-abundance of stunning spells. His spellwork was clever, reasonably complex, and deftly executed.

He was years behind his now top form but the potential was clear.

Hermione could not help herself but feel pride in her old friend's progress. He had truly bloomed.

Dumbledore stood in a single spot, somehow maintaining a silent, commanding presence when Harry was feverishly circling him, shooting four spells to his one. To Harry's credit, Dumbledore did not have a grandfatherly expression nor a teacher's - but was concentrating intensely.

Hermione had always maintained could always watch Dumbledore for hours, whether it was him performing the Great Hall theatrics, giving a speech, or him simply watching other people. The brilliance he could imbue in everyday situations was simply breathtaking. Watching him always made one aware of subtleties that they never knew existed.

"_Paying attention to the idiosyncrasies - those little, often silent mannerisms and actions that make us who we are - often tell us more than what we say are our 'defining moments.' Such grandiose moments are often done with great contemplation and self-reflection, and therefore complications... while the idiosyncrasies are done with little to no thought, and are therefore a purer, more indicative action of our personality and intent..." _Dumbledore had said in the introduction of a magnificent speech to the Wizengamot years ago.

The speech was and still is considered one of the greatest of all time, as it singularly outlined Voldemort in terms of his past, present, and future. It was ultimately what put the edge in the Ministry's, and ultimately Wizarding Great Britain's fight against Voldemort. Great Britain had finally, just in time, been fully and thoroughly convinced of a fight that needed its undivided attention and efforts.

Dumbledore had been murdered only a few months after that speech.

Regardless, the man behind that speech, watching him now in a fight... was simply amazing.

It takes skill to block a spell. It takes greater skill to block the incoming spell and use that action to also bring about an offensive move. Yet it takes simple and unrequited greatness to block multiple spells and - with blindingly fast calculation - recognize the similar elements of those incoming spells to craft a counter that would simultaneously block and attack. This is what Dumbledore did, with _every spell_.

The depth of knowledge and lightning quick intellect that this reflected was absolutely unreal. Harry's attack was clever, but Dumbledore's was brilliant. The difference displayed the distance between the two greatest wizards of their age with diligent simplicity.

Soon enough Dumbledore began to take the offensive - still standing - and Harry was forced more and more to turn to physical means rather than magical to avoid his attacks. First with transfiguring objects to take the brunt force of Dumbledore's attacks, and then declining to simply dodging his spells.

The stone encirclement continued to shatter and spray slices of stone obliterated by deflected or misaimed spells. The multifaceted and multicolored spells shot strange and horrific shadows upon the cove's walls that seemed to stretch out and dance in violent ecstasy between the combatants. The relatively smooth rock surface scratched with the noises of the fighter's feet, pivoting and pushing off with quick dexterity to gain better positioning.

The explosions of Dumbledore's spells into the transfigured objects were beginning to create numerous bleeding wounds on Harry. He was getting desperate - the offensive he had once wielded had been turned against him and he was no longer using creative ingenuity to mount counterattacks or defensive techniques - he was relying purely on instinct.

Something, Hermione mused, was exactly what Dumbledore had said in the previous memory was precarious to use against more skilled wizards for extended periods of time.

Still Harry fought - she had never seen nor could she ever conceive the idea of Harry giving up in such a fight - the only time he had done so she still had yet to be keyed in as to why.

Harry managed to keep impeccable form with his body despite his spellwork getting increasingly simplistic.

A sudden white spell from Dumbledore crumpled Harry's shield and swirled around his body in a quick and sudden fashion. The spell disappeared and Harry jerkily rolled for a couple seconds before lying completely still.

Dumbledore's abnormally abusive and forceful attack unnerved and surprised her. The crumpled, bleeding form of Harry a testament to it. It brought a disconcerting array of memories Hermione had long chosen to forget.

Dumbledore paced over to Harry, his long robes dirtied but ultimately untouched. Something akin to regret shone in his eyes as he bent down and awakened Harry.

Harry shook his head and pawed at the ground, desperately trying to regain his bearings and balance. His eyes flashed - still fiery from the fight - and he made to reach for his fallen wand. Dumbledore shot a simple summoning spell and Harry's wand flew immediately to his hand.

"Fight's over, Harry" and he laid Harry's wand gently upon the ground.

Harry exhaled sharply upon reaching for his wand, grim disappointment upon his face as he slowly healed his numerous wounds. His breathing was slowly returning to a normal pace.

The fight was over and he knew he was soundly defeated, but still he wished to fight on - it was in his eyes.

It was one of the many attributes that had made Harry so alluring as a friend, ally, and even enemy - the unyielding, obstinate, driving force that was behind everything that Harry put his mind to. When combined with the training that she was now witnessing, it was a nigh unstoppable force.

But not yet, she mused... as she watched Harry's wounds disappear. Not yet.

_When had he turned dark? _

The things she would do to go back in time...

"Harry," Dumbledore said softly, "You are going to have to find something to reach a higher level."

Harry's eyes lit up even brighter with indignation, but in a very visible fashion, calmed himself down.

"I know."

Dumbledore stared at him, on bended knee, his inscrutable eyes thinking unfathomable thoughts.

Harry had finished his healing spells, and sat. His head stooped and his back leaned against the stone heavily. His eyes did not quite meet Dumbledore's.

"Tell me your thoughts, Harry."

Harry took several deep breaths before answering, "I've tried everything... _everything_, surely you must have noticed all my combinations! You shouldn't have been able to deflect spells derived from _two different methods _with one spell! You did this multiple times!"

Dumbledore remained expressionless, but said "You're focusing on the small problems, Harry. Not the bigger ones. A more inductive approach would benefit you here - these smaller failures are blurring your perception of the larger overall one."

"Then what _is_ my problem?" Harry said, a bit of venom in his voice.

Dumbledore's eyes tightened a little, "I can't answer that Harry, you know this. We've been over it several times... these next forays into magical development - if they are meant to be - are an overwhelmingly personal process."

Harry did not reply, simply straightening up his sitting position a little more.

Dumbledore spoke, "Pushing all that aside, presuming that we did spend a little time on the micro-issues at hand... you say I am diffusing two fundamentally different spells with one?"

Harry nodded.

"And what does this tell you?" Dumbledore asked.

"That I'm missing something."

"Naturally, naturally... but what does it _say?_"

Harry brushed his hair out of his face, "That I'm missing a connection, some distinction amongst spells that binds them together... I have no idea what it is, though."

"What strikes you as the defining characteristic of those drastic combinations you sent at me, Harry?"

"Well.. they're different, completely different."

"They're not only different, Harry. They were _opposites_."

_Ah_ thought Hermione... _brilliant_.

_Duality._

"Think on that Harry," and Dumbledore stood up, offering his hand to Harry.

Harry looked up at Dumbledore's outstretched hand, a little bit of surprise playing upon his brow. Even then the oppression he had faced in the Dursley's still made him inherently doubt people's good will towards him.

With a grateful but still sullen expression, he grasped Dumbledore's hand and stood up.

As the darkness began to encroach on Hermione's vision - heralding the beginning of yet another memory - she watched Harry and Dumbledore's forms walking away, Dumbledore's hand reassuringly upon Harry's sagging shoulders.

.

.

* * * _The Third Memory * * *_

.

.

No exploding spells greeted Hermione this time, but the excited tones of speaking voices - young voices. Immediately her own memories recalled Gryffindor after-quidditch parties and the atmosphere they created. She was in an astonishingly normal house, a hallway to be exact. An unknown family's portraits lined the walls looking at her with smiling faces.

The smell of alcohol assaulted her nose and the low booming bass pervaded the otherwise deserted hallway.

Well, not exactly deserted.

Harry was there, standing extraordinarily stiffly, and undoubtedly nervous. Hermione smiled. Strange how, when facing the most powerful wizard in the world, Harry showed absolutely no anxiety, yet now clearly radiated it.

Harry slowly began to make his way through the house, towards the sounds of the party.

He was wearing normal clothes - he looked good - young, in shape, and the healthy glow of being outside upon his skin - it accentuated his eye color fabulously. But he was woefully underdressed - a pair of worn jeans and a white tee shirt. In an everyday, passerby situation he would have been a cutting, very attractive figure. But now...

Her heart sighed sadly as she saw his attempts of fixing his naturally tousled hair. It was wet and shined with the clear overuse of gelling charms.

_It looks fine as it was Harry..._

She yearned to grab his hand, gently fix his hair for him, and to go out and get a good pair of clothes for him to enjoy himself in.

Not for the first time, pangs of regret shook her that she had never gotten the chance to do such things with her best friend. He had needed her. And she would have been more than willing to be there for him.

Noises came from the room they had just passed. Hermione jumped slightly but Harry, as tensed up as he was, had completely flattened himself against the wall with his wand out and a near invisible shield shimmering before him.

War did strange things to a man.

The source and reasonings for the sounds became apparent to Hermione and her eyes widened.

Harry canceled his shield and crept silently to peer into the partially closed door of the room.

_Don't Harry... don't look..._

Inside were a guy and girl not-so-silently writhing underneath bed covers that only half covered their moving bodies. The room was dark, but the moonlight streaming through the slits of the curtains provided enough light to give Harry and Hermione a well defined visual to put with the sounds.

Harry's body froze in shock and he immediately spun away from the doorway, laying flat against the wall breathing extremely heavily. His eyes closed, and when they opened she saw Harry's mouth form silently the word _'Woah.'_

Chuckling, Hermione watched as Harry shook his head slightly and a look of silent determination overtook him.

He walked with purpose towards the far doorway which lead to the main area of the party. He slowed a bit when reaching it, and immediately all the nervousness he had had before returned.

He peered around the corner, as did Hermione who had almost had to run to keep up with him.

The first thing Hermione noticed was that these people were not wizards. Far from it. It was a relatively classy party - with drinks and snacks offered in a relatively clean and orderly fashion. The people's garb - creating even further distance from Harry's own apparel then she initially thought - was relatively tasteful and of moderate conservativeness.

But drunk was drunk, no matter if you're muggle or wizard, and the scene before her and in the bedroom was a overwhelming verification.

The room was full of young adults dressed to impress. She herself, a shade within a memory, even felt underdressed. Provocative dancing ensued near the middle and huddling groups of dizzy teenagers and perhaps young 20s adults talked animatedly.

Hermione found herself feeling quite nostalgic.

She suddenly noticed that Harry wasn't looking at everything that was happening, but one place in particular.

One girl, in particular, she amended herself.

A slow smile formed upon her face.

She was - as pretty girls tend to do - talking to a fair sum of guys. Her carefree smile was framed by dark wavy hair tied prettily with a dark red ribbon, and a lilting laugh accented her pleasing form.

_Always the brunettes, hmm Harry?_

She wasn't a knockout by any means, but she was beautiful in an everyday, hardly-trying sort of fashion. In other words, the dangerous kind. The ones that don't just steal your fantasies, but your heart as well.

She did, Hermione mused, carry herself well. Flirty, no doubt, but not too much to where she over-presented herself.

Hermione suddenly looked back at Harry, who was still staring at her.

_He's seen her before._

She hadn't the slightest clue as to what way he had done so, but she knew this to be a fact.

Suddenly the pretty girl broke away from her group and made her way toward where they were standing. Harry immediately tensed and with a moment's hesitation immediately went invisible.

Impressive magic notwithstanding, Hermione smiled sadly as she watched Harry's shyness pervade his obviously ulterior motives. She cast the necessary spell for her to see the invisible Harry and continued watching.

The girl walked by them briskly, fiddling with her hair. She made her way to a nearby room where she took the ribbon out and began fixing her hair in a mirror.

_Oh please._

_Honestly... she seriously thinks there's something wrong with her hair?_

She understood teenage insecurities and self-image issues, she really did. But this was just ridiculous.

_What possibly is there to fix? If this girl only knew what she had to go through to look like the girl's apparently "messed up" hair did now..._

She continued huffing for a bit but then chuckled when she caught Harry's face. For him, watching this girl play and re-do her hair was extremely sensual, if his awestruck face had anything to say about it.

Someone shouting the girl's name excitedly telling her to come quickly jolted both her and Harry from their visual, and the girl quickly walked from the room.

She had left her ribbon.

Harry suddenly looked away, and backed from the doorway. With a deep breath he once again flickered into visibility.

Sudden hope shot through Hermione.

_Come on Harry... you can do it! Just say hi... that's all you would need to do, you've got the perfect excuse now..._

Harry walked/ran to the ribbon, picked it up, and once again paused by the threshold. Hermione could basically hear his heartbeat.

His face was in a pained expression - an emotional war was playing within him and it was painfully clear to see.

Suddenly he leaned back on the heels of his feet.

_No Harry... go..._

Hermione suddenly noticed that it wasn't just a war of his nerves - his eyes were suddenly tainted with decisions that should have never crossed his mind for years, if ever...

With a dramatic and quick flourish, he threw the ribbon upon the floor, flickered out of sight, and made his way quickly from the house. She followed him in hot pursuit, as he literally ran out of the house.

She yelled out for him to stop, to just say hello to the pretty girl, but of course he couldn't hear.

The moment he made his way into a wooded region he apparated - silently - and she went with him.

She appeared in front of a house that again she did not recognize and he walked through the door. Dumbledore was inside the room to the right, writing intently in the same notebook she had seen before.

Harry paused at the parlor room, a big decision being made in his mind. He made an initial movement to walk up the stairs to his left, but paused once more. With careful and slow precision he made his way to the right, eventually taking a seat in front of Dumbledore.

When he looked up, Hermione gasped, for his eyes were red with emotion, nearly on the verge of tears.

Dumbledore slowly put down his notebook, his eyes full of compassion, somber and grave.

"What's wrong, Harry?"

It took a long time before Harry could answer.

"There's been this... " his voice choked, "... _girl_... that I've noticed lately."

Dumbledore merely nodded, his eyes telling Hermione and Harry that he too, knew this already. But he kept quiet, and was the attentive listener Harry needed.

"During one the stealth exercises you put me through, I've seen this girl... she's really nice from what I can tell..."

Dumbledore nodded in soft encouragement.

"and last night - when practicing the silent walking thing - I had overheard her saying that there was this party she was going to... and that anyone was invited..."

He paused once more.

"I only... I only wanted to say hi, or something... I wanted to.. I dunno..."

_Oh Harry..._

"Act your age?" Dumbledore offered softly, "Be normal, let down your worries... be... free?"

"_Yes._" Harry answered, the emotional truth in his simple one word reply heartbreaking to hear.

Silence pervaded.

"I had the chance to talk to her, Albus... I did, it was perfect... I just... I began to think, _rationally_" he said with distaste and venom, "... and I realized..."

He ran his hands through his hair, afraid to speak more lest he loose complete emotional control.

"Harry..." said Dumbledore, and Hermione felt a terrible feeling come across her, "those stealth exercises weren't for stealth."

Harry looked at Dumbledore with bloodshot eyes, the edges of which were pooling dangerously with tears.

"It was a test."

Harry's face tensed with anger, and he looked away as he stood up in indignation and began pacing around the room.

Dumbledore continued, his face tragically sad, "Harry... there comes a point for a select number of wizards, when their magical and personal achievements and progress call in question the balancing of... not so much priorities or ambitions... but dreams."

Harry stopped pacing, his back to the Dumbledore.

"... where the killing of one dream allow the fulfilling of another."

Harry spun around, yelling "But shouldn't we - shouldn't _I_ have a choice?"

Dumbledore still sat, "Harry... there's always a choice."

"Well then _where is it?_" yelled Harry.

Dumbledore stared sadly at Harry, seeing much farther than what was in front of him, "Harry... you just had - and made - your choice."

Harry's chest constricted as Dumbledore's words ran over him, the truth offering a cold, shocking feeling that completely numbed him. He brought his hands over his head, and walked around listlessly, as if having no intention whatsoever than moving.

"You don't understand..." mumbled Harry, the realization of truth still washing over him.

Dumbledore smiled sadly, "No Harry... _trust me_... I understand completely."

They stared at each other - one sitting the other standing, reveling in their sad similarities. Hermione knew she was witnessing one of the greatest moments in recent history, the plain and dark living room offering a strange and off-putting backdrop.

She watched as one solitary tear fell down Harry's stricken face, as he nodded in solemn understanding - and forgiveness.

Dumbledore and Harry's eyes met, and Harry with brimming eyes choked back his body's desire to just cry outright. He began to slowly nod his head, still looking at Dumbledore, taking a deep breath as he opened his mouth.

"_I know._"

And a small, tear-flecked smile appeared upon his face, giving everything Dumbledore's beseeching looks of apology and forgiveness was asking for and more.

A stream of tears fell down her face as if they were on a returning mecca to her heart.

The now familiar blackness of an incoming memory once more took her from the room.

.

.

* * *_The Fourth Memory * * *_

.

.

She was in a bedroom.

It was the same house she had just been in - she could tell. Harry was laying in the bed, breathing slightly. Despite her initial thoughts, he was not in fact asleep. The dim moonlight flickered prettily off of his emerald eyes, reflecting the fact that no drowsiness laid within.

There was, however, the remnants of tears upon his pillow.

Her eyes picked out his discarded clothes he had worn that day lying on the floor beside his bed - they were the same as the ones he had worn in the last memory.

This was, she realized, later in the night of the last memory.

Suddenly, the door opened silently and she saw Harry's eyes close shut instantly.

Dumbledore walked through.

She watched as he paced over to Harry's bedside. He reached within his robes and laid something gently upon Harry's nightstand.

Hesitating only a little, he slowly walked back out. She could not catch the look in his eyes, but she did pick out what he had laid on the nightstand.

The dark red ribbon.

Hermione's heart lurched and swelled, closing her eyes as she dreaded watching Harry's reaction to its appearance.

She needn't have worried as once more she was torn to another memory.


	5. Chapter 5

Here's the fifth chapter - it took a loooooong time. I will edit this page within the next couple days with some in depth responses to the great number of amazing reviews I got - you guys are great and will definitely be acknowledged! I figured I would post this chapter right away.

And given the date of this update, I did want to acknowledge and give a short little message to the victims, the victim's families, and those of you who were affected in some way by the tragedy of September 11th. You have not and will not be forgotten. No politics, religious statement, or anything else is affiliated with this statement besides condolences and heartfelt thoughts of support.

Alright, here's the story.

Enjoy.

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

_Chapter Five_

* * * _The Fifth Memory * * *_

She heard her soft sounds of crying disperse in the hallways as though a broken whisper. The surrounding silence illuminated her tearful state like a cruel and vicious spotlight.

The halls of the Hogwarts of old welcomed her, and her heart quailed. The emotional turmoil of Harry's last memory weighed heavily upon her. For so many, many years she had yearned to express her care and love for him in some fashion - a hug, a touch, a speech... a _something_, but circumstances and fate had left such desires unfulfilled.

Thought to be extinct, now found to be merely dormant, those strong emotions now reverberated with alarming intensity, shaking the very depths of her soul. What she had just seen had given her something to act on, a lifeline for her to latch on when thinking of her once best friend - the epitome of a fallen angel.

More than anything, she could finally look on with _emotional reason _on the shy, disheveled boy, who had saved her from a troll and loneliness so long ago.

How dearly she wished she could have been there for him. In nearly every sense of the word, she would have given everything.

She looked around, still trying to stem her tears and seemingly uncontrollable sniffles. Harry - or anyone - were not in sight. Merely the corridor and her. More unbidden thoughts took ahold of her.

Although still standing and functioning, Hogwarts was now more of a war memorial than a school - in that single, catastrophic battle, almost one third of the castle was destroyed and the entire grounds had been completely ravaged. The parts of the castle that survived bore hideous and gruesome scars that served as a constant reminder to the children, teachers, and visitors, of the unfathomable violence that could emerge even within the halls of a nation's schools.

Seeing thestrals was no longer a rarity for individuals to see in Great Britain.

The country was still in shock over a decade after. Normal people do not see or commit murder - no matter how righteous - and go back to normal activities without mental repercussions, and such it was with wizarding Britain. The entire psyche of Great Britain had been severely displaced and shocked, and Hermione had certainly not been spared.

She had gone back to Hogwarts only a couple times and she had found all of the visits to be painful beyond belief. Therapeutic, she knew, but terribly, terribly painful. She remembered vividly coming across a portion of the hall where McGonagall had fallen, gutted whilst protecting her beloved students. Hermione had even found dried blood at that spot, the only thing remaining of her old Head of House.

This memory she was in now, however, brought mixed feelings. The walls were vacant of the telltale scorches of missed and exploding spells, and portions of the Hogwarts that had been completely obliterated were still standing strong.

She really, _really_ did not know how to feel.

Some of the portraits around her suddenly awoke and drowsily shook the sleep from their eyes. From extensive experience, she knew someone was coming.

_What would this memory be about? _

Once more a rising feeling of apprehension took ahold of her.

Dumbledore and Harry could suddenly be seen rounding the corner, their robes flowing softly.

Harry stood not behind Dumbledore, but beside him, walking stride for stride. His posture, however, still reflected the respect he had of the great man beside him.

_Had Harry always been as tall as Dumbledore?_

She immediately noticed that Harry had begun to develop and embrace the presence he had carried so steadfastly throughout the war - calm, confident, and decisive. The manner he walked suggested contemplative silence and immaculately restrained power.

Both Harry and Dumbledore's eyes flashed glimmers of emerald and sparkling blue, reflecting the silent inquisitiveness their minds hummed with.

It suddenly occurred to Hermione that Harry was at least seventeen at this point. Yet, she had never known Harry to come back to Hogwarts during her stay. The amount of anxiousness within her built by the second.

A cool, soft breeze that touched her cheeks marked their passing, and woke her out of her reverie. Pushing her thoughts and emotions away, she hurriedly followed their brisk pace.

It didn't take her long to make the connection of the destination being the Headmaster's office. It made sense, she supposed.

They spoke no words to each other, and carried on their walk with no sign of discomfort or awkwardness - they were comfortable in silence.

As Harry dropped slightly behind Dumbledore, she noticed Professor Snape, Flitwick, and Professor McGonagall awaited them at the Headmaster's door. They too raised mixed feelings in Hermione but she had no time to dwell on them as they started speaking.

"Headmaster," intoned the three Professors, and Dumbledore smiled and nodded to the both of them.

Snape made no motion to acknowledge Harry's presence, although McGonagall had a tight-lipped smile that clearly showed she was immensely glad to see one of her favorite students.

Harry, Hermione noted with surprise, was actually the one who initiated the greeting.

"Hello Professors," and he gave a small, contained smile to McGonagall and Flitwick, while nodding curtly to Snape, making eye contact, but not holding it for long.

Snape accepted the greeting with a quick nod of his own and only the barest tightening of his lips.

McGonagall, of whose dead body Hermione could not but help replaying over in over in her head, did not show the surprise Hermione knew she was experiencing from Harry's easily discernible change in attitude and confidence.

"How have you been, Mr. Potter? I do hope these past two years have been good to you?" asked McGonagall.

Harry looked up, "Excellent, Professor... I'm doing great, really. I've actually learned to apply myself... and it's turned out to be a pretty good idea" answered Harry with a small, self-conscious smile.

McGonagall looked at him intently, "well I'm glad to see it finally hit home, Mr. Potter, you certainly couldn't have a better teacher."

"I realize and am thankful for it everyday, Professor" said Harry seriously, and McGonagall quietly nodded in silent approval.

"However... there's no Quidditch though" quipped Harry, and McGonagall had the tracings of a smile upon her lips.

"Not one of my greater talents, unfortunately" said Dumbledore with a smile, "I'm afraid I tend to over analyze situations that Quidditch brings about, which is not what you would say is 'conducive' to gameplay. I gave up broomsticks a long time ago."

"At birth." said Harry softly, so only Dumbledore could make out what he said. Dumbledore gave Harry a slightly patronizing look, but the humor was definitely there. Harry looked down once more, laughter in his eyes.

"Well then," said Dumbledore, his tone becoming somewhat business-like, "shall we begin?"

Everyone nodded but Harry, who looked at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore unspokenly understood and nodded, "The debriefing will take about an hour, then we'll start our actual agenda."

"Thank you Sir," said Harry, "I'll be back before then."

McGonagall looked at Harry questioningly, and Harry responded with a quiet smile "I wish to see my friends."

_What?_

McGonagall nodded in appreciative understanding, "I'm sure they will be ecstatic to see you Mr. Potter, they've grown - so much - in the past two years, I'm sure you'll be able to tell. Although Mr. Weasley still seems to indulge in his customary... shall we say 'over zealousness' at the dinner table."

Harry smiled, "Thank you Professor, I really appreciate your words." and he walked away, through the Headmaster's door. The four professors stared after him, two with pride and inquisitiveness, one with a cold, calculating gaze, and the other with an indecipherable expression that said he knew much more than Harry was letting on.

Hermione agreed with the last one.

.

.

.

.

She followed Harry like a specter.

_He had visited them? _

Harry did not seem to be experiencing the emotional turmoil that possessed her. He seemed patient and frustratingly calm.

The walk to the Gryffindor common room was not a long one, and Harry was certainly in no hurry.

Hermione resisted the urge to verbally, and perhaps physically push him forward, to get some immediate answers.

No one could not boss around shades of memories, unfortunately.

Hermione supposed she couldn't be bothered though, as Harry was clearly using this chance to soak up what she knew was the only place he had ever considered home.

Harry continued to walk as though admiring an exquisite flower garden. His eyes closed every once in a while, and he made strange and subtle gestures with his wand that were strangely similar to those he had made outside the entrance to the veil. Various expressions of awe, genuine curiosity, and even smiles followed.

When Harry reached one of the larger intersections of corridors, he suddenly looked up. He then carefully levitated down a pair of earmuffs and a magazine that hung oddly from an empty banner rod.

Those articles he had floated down looked uncannily familiar but Hermione could not quite place it. She noted absently that he had shrunk and pocketed the items after briefly inspecting them.

Welcoming calls and clapping from the numerous portraits hanging from the walls created a small, unorthodox, yet enthusiastic little fanfare for his homecoming as he approached the Fat Lady. Even Sir Gadalon, the normally reclusive and oddly stationary suit of armor bowed his adorned head as Harry walked by.

"Would you mind, My Lady?" inquired Harry politely as he neared the portrait.

"Not at all, my dear boy, not at all..." and the Fat Lady bumbled out of her portrait and the door swung open.

Harry quietly flickered to an invisible state.

Having seen his face before he had done so, she noticed nothing that suggested panic or nervousness. What he was doing was planned, and had been planned for a while. With no small amount of trepidation, she cast the spell to see Harry.

The soft undertones of the wizarding wireless drifted through the door and the sounds of laughing and relaxed chatter followed.

With a start, Hermione saw herself.

Seamus, Dean, Ginny, Parvati, Lavender, Ron, and her eighteen year old self sat in the common room animatedly talking. They had circled some of the sofas and chairs near one of the corners of the room, their homework long since pushed to the side.

_Ah. _

Now she remembered this night.

_Harry had visited this night?_

"But did you catch look at their _faces_? Malfoy looked like he had just accidently banged his mother!" said Ron as he bellowed his laughter.

Everyone in the circle laughed uproariously at this as well. Hermione herself smiled in remembrance and watched her younger self's eyes widen in shock.

Hermione watched herself elbow Ron gently in the gut causing him to '_oomph'_ a little, "You shouldn't be gloating, Ronald, they were very close to beating us and it was only luck that made us win."

A silence settled down, and she caught Ginny somewhat roll her eyes and cast a sideways glance at Dean. The younger Hermione caught Ginny's eyes, beseeching her for some sense.

Ginny merely gave her a look that clearly said "_well... it's funny."_

She continued anyhow, "and that description was disgusting, Ronald, simply _disgusting_!"

More silence. Both Hermione's squirmed a bit. The young Gryffindors were well used to her rather socially obtrusive speeches, but it still could catch them unawares at times... like this...

"Yeah, but..." said Ron uncertainly, "...did you _see_ _their faces?_" and he and everyone else burst out laughing even more and her younger self finally joined them, punching Ron half heartedly while doing so.

Hermione laughed with them but kept a close eye on Harry. He made a straight path towards the boys dormitory.

_Had he left something?_

Upon reaching the third or fourth step on the staircase, however, he hesitated. Hermione watched with extreme anxiety. After a moment or two, he turned around and looked upon his old friends. His look was nondescript, but calculating. With relaxed eloquence, he took a seat upon the stairs and watched their conversation.

A bit of apprehension appeared on his brow, but his calmness still pervaded.

He made no move to join or show himself, seemingly content to just be there. Throughout the last conversational sequence he had looked slightly amused at Ron's theatrics and speech, but seemed to be taking more from simply sitting there then the actual conversation. His eyes were often closed as he listened.

Hermione let out slow, drawing sigh and looked at the young Harry with sad eyes.

Why he wasn't showing himself wasn't completely clear to Hermione, but she knew Harry had distanced himself from emotional attachments - as the last memories had already tragically portrayed.

She watched his eyes linger from time to time on her and Ron. He still cared, she could tell.

She could not even begin to express how much all of this meant to her.

The conversation continued at varying levels of hilarity and seriousness, the topics bouncing from the bloody Slytherins and the upcoming NEWTs. Harry, throughout the entire time, made almost no visible reactions. When open, his deep, sparkling eyes were the only indicators of his attentions and emotions. They gazed with palpable intensity.

As Harry silently got up walked the final length of the stairs, Hermione found herself disappointed. It took a couple seconds to realize that she had been hoping he would reveal himself. Feeling truly foolish, she shook off the feelings and followed Harry hurriedly.

He was a fair distance ahead of her so when she caught up with him, she saw him staring at his old bed. No one had taken his bed after he had left, but the boys had placed a big doll in his place that was the recipient of an enormous amount of joking and spell practicing.

Someone had even placed a scar on its forehead.

Harry smiled softly, and gestured with his hand, erasing the scar. With another quick flick of his wrist a new scar appeared a little more to the right, as Hermione knew it to be in real life.

Leaving his old bed, Harry quickly made his way to Ron's bed and pulled out his belongings. Hermione felt no small amount of consternation and alarm.

Harry took out his wand - his holly wand - and cast a quick sentry spell on the doorway and immediately began casting a barrage of warding/protection spells. They were complex - disgustingly complex for a seventeen year old - and Hermione, even now, only recognized a couple of them.

What she did know was that she could pull out several scenarios within the several months after this memory that occurred where Ron - and her - should have been maimed, dead, or worse. But for some reason they had inexplicably not born the brunt of an incoming spell or been hurt when others around them had. She remembered how they had hypothesized deep into the night but had ultimately left it unsolved as to why.

Now she knew.

Her heart brimmed with emotion once more.

_He cared... he truly cared..._

Harry made his way out of the boys dormitory. He crossed the Common Room without a glance at their continued conversation and towards the girls dormitory.

A minute's work and he diffused the anti-male wards on the stairs, and Hermione watched with pride and passion as Harry performed the same life-saving spells on her belongings. She realized with a start that even when he had gone, he'd still continued saving her from trolls in girls restrooms. Her and Ron.

As Harry laid down the pair of earmuffs and magazine on the nightstand beside her bed, she suddenly remembered where and why she had seen them.

_Harry had given them to her?_

And, as she watched Harry carefully inscribe "_L. Lovegood"_ on the earmuffs, she realized that Harry had done so with the intent that she would give them back to Luna - which she had done.

Luna had been a girl that she had not seen much after the Department of Mysteries. A strange and dreamy girl, she simply did not have a personality that Hermione could connect to even though her instincts always told her she should've.

She remembered now, quite distinctly, that when she had given the strange combination of things back to the blond Ravenclaw, Luna had given her a look like she had just done something _much_ more then that.

She had never found out why.

Hermione watched as Harry left her old room and walked at the same casual pace through the Common Room. With only the briefest of looks at her younger self and Ron, he walked through the door unbeknownst to anyone.

Deep in thought, she followed Harry, who walked at a brisker pace then his earlier trip.

"Butterfingers," Harry said, and the door to Dumbledore's office swung open impressively. Snape, Flitwick, and McGonagall sat in front of Dumbledore at his desk and all looked at Harry.

Harry nodded to all of them.

"You're just in time, Harry. Do you wish to provide your own seat this time?"

"No sir, I really can't get the cushions like you do" Harry said with a bit of a pained expression.

Dumbledore looked amused, "You'll find that as you get into old age, you tend to put a little more emphasis into learning such things, Harry." And he promptly conjured a chair - comfy cushion galore.

"Thank you, Sir" and Dumbledore nodded, eyes twinkling.

"How were your friends, Harry?" asked McGonagall, her eyes curious.

"They're doing great, Professor... These last two years have been wonderful for them... they're really doing well."

Hermione could only stare with pained pride at her best friend, as the darkness once again took over her vision.

_What happened Harry? What happened..._

_._

_.  
><em>

* * * _The Sixth Memory * * *_

.

.

The acrid smell of burnt flesh set upon her senses with a vengeance. Fighting the revulsion, she squinted through the whirling snowstorm, and saw a sight that she never - _ever_ - wanted to relive.

The tragic background of Hogwarts' crumbling towers heralded the only possible event it could be - The Battle of Hogwarts.

Otherwise known, and better remembered as Dumbledore's Fall.

Hermione shivered and quickly conjured winter apparel - Voldemort had attacked during the winter.

The grounds were littered with bodies of wizards and beasts alike, their forms revealed by a combination of moonlight sneaking through the snow, and the ever changing spectrum of spellfire.

High in the sky, she could see the remnants of blue flares fading in the blustery winter night sky - their presence denoting that the last retreat had been sounded some time ago. All of the defenders had been pulled back inside the castle, forced to leave their wounded and killed behind.

One of the most intense firefights of the entire war was about to commence inside the castle. Even now Voldemort's forces could be seen scaling the walls and striving to push through the minor entrances.

She herself stood in the Hogwarts Courtyard - the dais of the great entrance into Hogwarts, and ultimately the Great Hall.

Her heart froze. During the battle she had been deep inside the castle, maintaining the wards until Voldemort's entrance had knocked her and the other wardens unconscious. Yet she still knew what had transpired upon the Hogwarts Courtyard... everyone did.

She ran behind one of the still standing columns of the Courtyard. With a start, she looked away from Hogwarts' falling towers and out toward the abandoned Hogwarts Grounds.

She pushed down the urge to find Ron with great difficulty, who she knew was lying injured and unconscious somewhere in the abandoned battlefield.

A huge shape could be seen through the wintery haze, occasionally outlined by the sudden appearance of flames. The heavy, thundering vibrations upon the ground only confirmed the imminent arrival of Voldemort's surviving red dragon.

As the great beast's shape became clearer, it became apparent that it was not alone. Dark robed figures surrounded it in a staggered fashion. They made their way towards the Courtyard entrance.

Hermione took a deep breath. Voldemort's inner circle had finally entered the foray. Flashes of magic could be seen as they calmly casted defensive precautions upon themselves.

Hermione looked back at the Courtyard.

The eccentric dark blue robes of Albus Dumbledore pierced the bleary sky. His long wand pointed downwards and his blue eyes glinted in steely determination. His wizened beard whipped in the wind, giving his tall, thin form a masterful and elemental appearance. He stood proud and calm right at the entrance that led to the Great Hall.

Spread out in front of him, Harry, Snape, Flitwick, Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and another Ministry wizard of immense skill crouched in defensible positions all around the Courtyard. Their faces gazed through the snow with terrible conviction upon their encroaching enemies.

The main entrance was a battle now unspokenly delegated to the elite fighters.

Seeing Harry stand tall in such prodigious company could not help but inspire a surge of pride within Hermione.

The red dragon burst into the courtyard with an ear-splitting roar, and stones sprayed everywhere. An enormous blast of its spitting fire swept the grounds and despite their precautions and preparations, all of the defenders were pushed back several feet by its vicious attack.

Taking advantage of the momentary disarray, Voldemort's inner circle came through with a sizzling barrage of curses. All of anyone who mattered were there - the Lestranges, Avery, Malfoy, Dolohov, Macnair. No surprises on who was there, or who wasn't. Minus Voldemort.

All but Dumbledore engaged Voldemort's inner circle in a vicious, brutal counterattack. The crack that emitted from the separate duels resounded across the entire grounds. Violent flashes of magic lit up the arena, giving glimpses to those up in the ramparts able to spare a glance. Those that did were not disappointed.

Dumbledore was still stood upon Hogwarts' entrance, waving his wand in careful movements. All around the Courtyard, created from the broken stone of Hogwarts itself, animating soldiers morphed into existence. With reasonable speed they made their way towards the red dragon, spears held threateningly in front of them.

Hermione suddenly caught Harry's lean, muscled form streaking forward as the others engaged in their deadly duels. His signature grey fighting cloak flapped in the wind wildly, his unruly hair doing the same.

He was head straight for the raging dragon.

Skidding on the snow covered stone, Harry drew back his wand and released a _huge_, almost colorless spell. It made no sound, but seemingly _siphoned_ it. The entire Courtyard Battle was drawn into an unnatural silence as the magical latency in the air around Harry rushed into the arching spell he had just unleashed. Hermione had never seen such a spell but knew she'd remember the feel of it forever.

The dragon had caught sights of Harry and was about to release another spew of fire when Harry's spell collided into its head with colossal impact. The sickening sound of something large hitting flesh squelched across the Courtyard. The dragon's head whiplashed violently as it roared in pain and shock, scrambling to regain its footing.

Harry was crouching, unleashing a slew of curses at the soft underbelly and the number of wounds it had received from its earlier aerial battle. His grey cloak fanned out behind him accentuating his athletic grace. Dumbledore's animated guardians closed in.

Moody's wooden staff could be heard cracking upon the stone pathways as his lighting-blue eye swiveled and dilated with increasing frequency. He was fiercely dueling MacNair and Rodolphus, his wizened features grimacing in intense concentration.

Kingsley, Flitwick, and the other Ministry wizard had kept in a minor formation and were engaging the elder Malfoy, Doholov, and Avery. The duel was evenly matched and it seemed as though only a stroke of luck would determine the winner.

Hermione's gaze reached over to the opposite side of The Courtyard from where she was situated. There, a duel was commencing that was contentiously one of the most touted in the past century. This had been the first moment that Snape had completely declared his allegiance, and his opening had been an glorious one.

Snape zoned in with his cold determination upon Bellatrix - who was absolutely frothing with anger in seeing him face her. They were two different fighters, two different personalities, and it showed with dramatic emphasis in their ferocious attacks.

Snape - the cool, conniving, and immaculately composed dueler - pitted against the inhumanly quick, vicious, and impulsive berserker, Bellatrix Lestrange. They were antagonists and counter-opposites on so many levels the tension was palpable even from far away.

Bellatrix never stopped moving, she shot spells at an unbelievable frequency. Her nimble feet were only matched by her wand movements. Snape stayed roughly in a single place, his slashing and purposeful sweeps of his wand silhouetted by his billowing black robes. Bellatrix could be seen to be shouting, leering at Snape with honed insults, but Snape's visage and composure remained ironclad. Hermione could see Snape's glittering eyes logically, analytically searching for an opening. Their fight raged back and forth, each searching, striving for the other's death.

A crash to her left shook her out of her visual, as the dragons tail obliterated the column next to her in its attempt to hit Harry. Harry had dove and was on the ground only feet from her, sweat pouring down his face and his heavy panting making his vulnerability all the more tangible to her. Quick movements of his hand forced the falling pieces of stone to land harmlessly to the side of him.

She had learned later that Harry had originally taken to apparating to avoid the dragon's attacks, but the unpredictability of the dragon's actions and stray spells had forced him to avoid that technique.

Harry rolled to side and scrambled behind the very column she hid behind. She could feel the determination radiating from his body. Behind her the dragon could be heard annihilating Dumbledore's stone guardians, roaring as an occasional one pierced its skin with it's spear.

Harry's grey robes were dirtied, ripped, and singed on the edges from the Dragon's fire. Even most of his eyelashes had withered away and blood trickled from his forehead.

He spun out to his right - he was easily as quick as Bellatrix - and shot a long and ironclad chain out of his wand - for seconds it sped out, snaking upwards above the dragon like a serpent from the sea.

Harry's face was a picture of utmost concentration and he snapped his wand leaving the chain suspended in the air. Five more times he did this until six huge, thick chains floated ethereally above the dragon.

Harry had tried the brute force technique against his foe, but one doesn't take down a dragon like that. It was, Hermione realized, time for him to be clever.

Like an arachnid, Harry began tethering the chains together with newly conjured chains that were deftly being linked and intermeshed. Dumbledore's guardians were doing a excellent job of distracting the dragon, though they were smoothly being obliterated by the enraged dragon. They'd all be destroyed soon, but they gave Harry time, and that was all he needed.

The scene that then played out was both eerie and magnificent - Harry's tall form looked as though conducting a master concerto. The far end of the Courtyard saw an enormous chained dome slowly descend upon the ferocious red dragon in the middle.

Harry was now hitting as many chains as he could with various enchantments and wards to protect it from the dragon's fire and claws.

Every once in a while a single taut chain would shoot out, linking the falling web to one or two of the pillars or perhaps the dragon.

With a sudden, vicious swipe of his wand, Harry let the chain organism fall upon the dragon with all the force gravity - and a little bit of magic - could give it.

As it became tangled in the chains, the dragon's roars of frustration and anger shook the ground. A few of the pillars it was now tethered to shattered.

Lucius broke away from his duel, and managed to snap several chains, but the Ministry wizard effectively re-engaged him. Harry quickly undid the damage.

The few left of Dumbledore's sentinels closed in with a vengeance as the Dragon tried in vain to break his entrapment - its massive jaws providing the only means of snapping them. It's tail was too tangled to gain enough momentum to do so.

From her peripheral vision, Hermione saw Bellatrix get a curse under Snape's defenses and scream in morbid delight. But Snape, despite his clear pain, effortlessly continued his wand motion to lash out with a spell that threw Bellatrix completely off of her feet. Their fight continued on in deadly earnest.

A dark shadow threw itself over the entire courtyard and a gripping fear possessed Hermione.

_Where was Dumbledore?_

_How could she have forgotten..._

With reckless abandon she moved away from her pillar and ran out into the middle - not yet registering that she couldn't actually be hurt.

He was no longer in the Courtyard, but his wizened form stood upon the very place he gave his welcoming speech each year.

Dumbledore was not moving, his fingers slowly spinning his wand in his other hand the only sign of motion. His eyes looked upon the entrance with grim satisfaction.

Hermione looked and saw what Dumbledore had sensed long ago - a dark mist that had begun to descend upon the courtyard.

Voldemort.

He materialized between the Great Hall's doors, standing like a specter of death. His red eyes glowed as if drawing strength from the chaos around him.

The snowflakes that hit his face did not melt.

The Dark Lord advanced slowly upon Dumbledore. He held his dark wand with his skeletal fingers in delicate deference.

Dumbledore merely stood upon the podium spot, his face inscrutable. His wand was still spinning smoothly in his hand.

Hermione was breathing hard. Almost involuntarily she looked around at the battle still ensuing on The Courtyard.

Flitwick had backed Avery into a large pile of fallen stone blocks. His little hands were a blur of motion as Avery's defenses became increasingly simplistic and desperate. It took only seconds more for Flitwick to disarm, maim, and incarcerate him in a picture perfect display of dueling efficiency.

Flitwick wasted no time running to aid Mad-Eye, who had taken down Macnair, but was suffering greatly. His peg-leg had been blasted off and he was fighting from a nearly laying position, his defeat imminent. The male Lestrange had been homing in on him like a shark, and reluctantly engaged the determined Flitwick.

Hermione noticed the Ministry fighter who had come with them had fallen, having been hit by a _Avada Kedavra, _courtesy of Malfoy senior. Lupin, who had come from the battle inside of Hogwarts, had rushed down to engage Lucius before he could double team someone as Lestrange and Macnair had done to Mad-Eye.

Huge reverberations could be felt now, and as she saw enormous constructs of magic appear from inside the Great Hall... Dumbledore and Voldemort's battle had begun.

She watched with fearful trepidation behind Voldemort's expansive dark robes, as the two greatest wizards of their time unleashed miraculous feats of magic. Dumbledore, with an enormous sweep of his hands, transformed the Houses' tables into tumbling boulders, hurtling towards Voldemort.

With extreme difficulty, Voldemort dispatched them by blasting the first two, sidestepping one, and transfiguring the last into a misshapen shape so that it rolled awkwardly enough to pass by him. Dumbledore took a powerful step forward and summoned the still rolling boulders behind Voldemort to do his bidding. Voldemort could be seen to be off balance, but whipped around and cast an unknown curse at Dumbledore.

That was the last she saw as a sudden roar captured her attention to her right.

The dragon was beginning to both tire and stumble, Harry's strategy finally beginning to fall through. All of Dumbledore's animated guardians had been defeated but the dragon was heavily held down by the magical chains. Harry advanced on it like cat in a slow, spiraling pattern, all the while firing curses and spells with pinpoint precision.

The dragon's fire had died but its teeth, tail, and claws were still lethal. Given the appropriate leverage and the absence of Harry distracting it, it was trying desperately to break as many chains as possible.

But Harry continued to rain spells, disorienting and maddening the large reptile. Given enough time, the dragon would have escaped its chain-web, but its magical resistance was beginning to fade and Harry was aiming exclusively for its wounds. The dragon's blood stained the snow upon the Courtyard like a grotesque rendering of modern art.

Suddenly, after lashing out with another enormous bludgeoning spell, Harry took off on an all out sprint towards the dragon with breathtaking speed. Hermione watched him in horror as he leaped upon the back of the enormous lizard and skillfully bounded up, despite the dragon's erratic movements and whipping chains. She could see his eyes glint with determination even from where she stood, and he lashed out with a pulverizing stream of dark, blue curses over and over again. Unable to look away she watched as the dragon's already injured neck became severed deeper and deeper with every pulsing blue curse Harry sent at it. The amount of blood was absolutely horrendous.

The dragon screamed its death throes, and Harry made to jump off of it but was not quick enough. The dragon had reacted to its partial beheading by bodily throwing Harry off, upwards of nearly fifteen feet in the air, where he crashed into ground with great momentum.

Harry did not move but the dragon spun jerkily in its tethered spot, spouting blood and roaring its denial of the inevitable.

With wide eyes Hermione rushed over to Harry, but he was already up - his robes and arms covered in dragon blood. Casting only a few elementary healing spells and one painful looking bone-mending one, he bounded past her.

Hermione spun around and saw Harry run over to Shacklebolt and Lupin, of whom Flitwick had left earlier. They had been taking on Malfoy, Avery, and Doholov and their fatigue was showing greatly.

Moody was now lying motionless on the ground. Macnair was not far away, slumped over debris clutching the entrails from his stomach, that Moody's skills had inflicted upon him earlier. He'd been dead for quite some time. Flitwick was still engaged in an intense duel with Rodolphus.

Snape and Bellatrix continued their deadly waltz. They stood apart from the other duels. Their pure determination to be the sole reason the other died had subconsciously taken them away from the others. No way in hell would a stray curse take credit that was exclusively theirs.

Bellatrix's speed had not faltered nor had Snape's ingenious and effective dueling style. Anything from the killing curse to flying daggers could be seen flying from Bellatrix's flitting wand, as she was not afraid to be either creative or ridiculous - whatever vicious means of killing her opponent popped up in her mind, instantly became sensible within her morbid logic. Hermione could sense Snape was finding, as many others have, it immensely difficult to duel this crazed woman for an extended amount of time.

Snape was a calculating man, logic and efficiency governing his every way of life. When dueling he had an uncanny affinity for identifying weaknesses - in other words, patterns - in people that could be utilized to gain some sort of intuition in which to defeat them.

But despite having known Bellatrix for so long, analyzing and watching her, her insanity made it such that she was simply _unpredictable_. Completely and utterly random. And with that Hermione watched Snape valorously battle on with the dark beauty that was Bellatrix Lestrange, his dark eyes searching - possibly in vain - for that critical opening.

Another yell pierced the air and the tall, noble form of Kingsley Shacklebolt fell onto the bloodied and snow covered stone. Avery quickly turned upon Harry who was fiercely battling Lucius and cast a sickening purple curse that Hermione well recognized. Lupin came out of nowhere, blocking the spell with a banished piece of debris, and he tackled Harry to the ground. Both of them whipped up and scurried over to the entrance of the Great Gates. The nature of the elevated entrance limited the angles their enemies could attack them, but Avery, Lucius, and Dolohov advanced with victory in their eyes.

Hermione ran, scampering around the dead dragon, and placed herself near the entrance. Snape, Bellatrix, Flitwick, and Rodolphus now waltzed alone in the Courtyard. Harry, Remus defended the entrance and Dumbledore and Voldemort shook the very castle with their duel in the Great Hall.

The enormity of the events washed over her like a breaking damn.

Lupin was panting, his fight from the Hogwarts' halls and the Courtyard taking its toll. With a quick and tired glance he caught ahold of Harry's eyes.

Harry nodded and looked questioningly. Lupin, in between spells, nodded right.

Suddenly an enormous sheet of white magic spewed from Harry's wand, causing Malfoy and Avery to backpedal quickly, forcing up a wide variety of shields. Lupin used the moment to launch himself with a fury Hermione had not seen before upon Dolohov, who was taken back by his ferocity.

Lupin shot spells as if possessed, and Dolohov's wand left him after a tradeoff of only five or six spells... Lupin's over-aggressive spellcasting taking off his hand in the process.

Lupin's next spell took Dolohov's life, but a spell from Avery smashed Lupin upon the Hogwarts' walls. Harry had been unable to contain Lucius and Avery any longer, but a retaliatory piercing curse from Harry took out Avery milliseconds after his dispatch of Lupin.

Lucius managed to get a killing curse within a hair's breath of Harry's head, due to Harry's momentary sacrifice to get a good shot at Avery. But when it came down to it, he had missed. Harry's gamble had proven successful, and it was with supreme vindictiveness that he set his eyes upon the Malfoy scion.

Minutes later found Lucius lying with his back on the ground, sightless eyes gazing at the skies with his long blonde hair fanned out beneath him.

It was also at this time that Snape had managed pin Bellatrix on the ground with his spells.

Bellatrix's quick and nimble movements had finally backfired on her, and she had tripped on one of Harry's conjured chains. Snape had taken advantage of the situation and launched into a blistering offensive. Still, Bellatrix managed to squirm, turn, and fight everything he threw at her, but both knew it was a matter of time. Snape slowly but steadily advanced on Bellatrix's backpedalling, prostrate form on the ground, his face a mask of pain and utter determination. Each spell Snape cast, Bellatrix was forced further and further to the ground, and when Snape shot a spell who's green light meant only one thing, it hit only stone.

Bellatrix had apparated.

So had Rodolphus.

Snape and Flitwick locked eyes before Snape collapsed upon the ground, and Flitwick scurried over to help his fellow faculty member, and friend.

Harry had been attending to Lupin, but had left him. There was no help to give. The carnage and destruction upon the Courtyard was incredible. Mad Eye, Lupin, Shacklebolt, the Ministry soldier, Macnair, Lucius, Avery, and the great red dragon laid in various states of death. Only Flitwick and Harry were left standing, and Snape was alive but in a state of nearly catatonic exhaustion. Rubble was everywhere, the ground scorched and painted with scathes of red blood.

Only the sounds escaping the battle inside of Hogwarts - the walls had been lost some time ago - could be heard amidst the resounding booms of Dumbledore and Voldemort's duel.

Hermione looked at Harry with close scrutinization.

He was standing, but had his hands on his knees, clearly pushed to the limit. Numerous injuries showed, but ultimately he was relatively unharmed. He had truly transcended all and every expectation that being the Boy-Who-Lived could have placed on him. He had become something else - simply Harry Potter. No titles, no prior claims to fame, his name alone carrying the merit and greatness of the man it had been bequeathed to.

Slowly standing tall, Harry turned towards the Great Hall.

It would be happening any time now. Hermione's breath began to get quicker, and shallow.

With careful trepidation he crept up, anxious to see how his mentor was faring. Hermione herself positioned herself to get a better look.

The Great Hall didn't look much better than the Courtyard. In fact, it looked considerably worse. Where the Courtyard had a scorch mark, the Great Wall had searing burns, where the Courtyard had rubble, the Great Hall literally had massive holes and blasted rafters hanging everywhere.

But what it did have was an absolute plethora of objects for a Transfiguration Prodigy to work with, and Voldemort was feeling this fact intimately.

Shards of the rafters, numbering in the thousands, hurtled towards Dumbledore who calmly turned them into sawdust with a smooth and shimmering shield. Voldemort gave up the attack and Dumbledore lashed out with the sawdust and threw it in a whirling storm around Voldemort's body, whirling with insane speed.

Massive flames shot out of the storm, as Voldemort burned the sawdust to harmful ash but Dumbledore, quicker than thought, transfigured the sawdust to sand, and Voldemort found himself being shredded by tiny, whirling pieces of glass that had formed from the insane heat of his overzealous counterattack.

Voldemort's scream could be heard, and his followers could be seen cowering in the hallways around the Great Hall. With a final push Voldemort simply obliterated everything in front of him with an amazing shock-wave of magic that shook the rafters.

The power that Voldemort possessed was unearthly, truly unmatched.

Yet Voldemort stood, rage lancing through his eyes, skin torn, robes tattered. He was a strange and craven sight.

Dumbledore, despite being thrown back by Voldemort's inhuman power, continued his assault. Voldemort raised his wand and shot a green killing curse before Dumbledore could complete his spell circuit.

Dumbledore had recognized and anticipated it, and had already dropped a group of fallen stone in its path, which exploded when hit. Voldemort immediately blasted the stone shards out of the way and towards Dumbledore, of whom he thought was once again going to utilize the stone in much the manner he had done with the wood.

With simple efficiency Dumbledore shot a single, arcing white spell that did nothing but blast Voldemort off of his feet, out maneuvering Voldemort once more. He then preceded to send the stone shards right back at him. Only Voldemort's quick reflexes and brute power stopped him from falling flat on the floor - a large and conjured gong-like shield taking the brunt of the spell before the rest pushed him brutally backwards. He backpedaled as he blasted the stone flying at him.

And so it continued. Dumbledore clearly held the advantage but could not break Voldemort's final defenses. It was intelligence versus power. Never more than now had Hermione appreciated the simple fact that Dumbledore was a _real_ genius. Not super smart, but a genius.

Slowly but surely Dumbledore was forcing Voldemort out of the castle. Harry, realizing this fact, deftly crept away from the entrance.

Both of these facts did not go unnoticed to Voldemort. Harry's back was partially exposed and Voldemort turned around and unleashed an absolute _stunner_ of a spell. It's resounding roar nearly threw Hermione off of her feet as the doorway glowed red hot from the spell's light.

Harry was not going to be able to react fast enough and Flitwick only watched in horror.

There were certain unspoken rules when dueling in this fashion, and Voldemort had always been known to adhere to them. In such touted and distinctly mano y mano duels it was an unspoken rule that you do not use other people - in any form - as means of winning. Someone such as Bellatrix? Not so much, but Voldemort had always carried a distinct honor code, no matter how delusional the rest of his notions were.

Voldemort, however, had never been losing during a battle so badly as he was now. And this first time he was, he broke the rules - he had attacked someone else - Harry. Hermione knew beyond a doubt that this was the rational Harry had taken when leaving himself so unprotected.

Dumbledore reacted.

With a harsh swipe of his wand, he brought down both of the Great Hall's massive wooden doors and they landed with an enormous _boom_ in front of Harry, effectively blocking Voldemort's spell from hitting him.

However, Voldemort's spell never hit it. Hermione watched with increasing horror as Voldemort's spell whipped around and shot at the now unprotected Dumbledore. It had been a ruse, a low and underhanded trick that was now going reap its reward.

_Fiendfyre_.

No counter opposite of fiendfyre existed, no clever use of magical theory could diffuse it. As Harry had instructed, things existed in pairs - they always do - but Fiendfyre and precious few others did not. It was one of the most blatant magical enigmas existing, and resulted in one of the most dangerous spells known to mankind.

The only thing one could do when facing it to resort to force. In other words, raw power. And that was something Voldemort would always, _always_ emerge the winner.

A gleaming almost opaque shield appeared in front of Dumbledore as he gestured powerfully with his hands. The force of Voldemort's spell blasted Dumbledore, whose landing cruelly revealed the old man he was. His back landed painfully against the steps up to the faculty table - no magic softening the harsh blow. Pain could be seen to be clouding his blue eyes but his shield held true.

But it was being forced back.

Hermione felt like her entire world was about to die.

Sweat was streaming down Dumbledore's head, his beard was beginning to curl and turn to ash in the blistering heat. All surrounding fights had stopped and watched the slow but inexorable inevitable. Voldemort stood like a pillar of evil, his face a grotesque contortion of determination. His dark wand spewed its fiery evil like a torrential river.

Dumbledore's shield was beginning to fail, and was mere inches from his faces when Hermione heard a cry to her left and saw Harry cast a spell.

The steam of fire stopped but Dumbledore did not move, the only movement being his neck lowering his head upon on the stairs, his eyes closed in immeasurable pain. Voldemort whipped around, clearly expecting Harry's attack, and immediately raised the Great Hall's doors once more and Harry's attack was stymied, the doors completely obliterated in a ear-splitting explosion.

With cold precision Voldemort turned around once more and cast two sickly green spells in quick succession at Dumbledore's still prostrate form.

One for Fawkes, who disappeared in a plume of feathers.

And one for Dumbledore, whose weathered eyes' light extinguished like a torch hitting water.

Silence ensued as tears streamed down Hermione's face, her body quivering at the moment's implications.

Short, harsh noises were able to be heard, increasing in volume.

Voldemort was laughing. It increased in frequency as Dumbledore's wand rolled from his lifeless fingers down the stairs in a slow, somewhat random cadence.

Hermione, had she not been a shadow, would have been blasted apart as a rocketing explosion ripped the air beside her.

By the time she recovered she looked up, Harry tall form towered within the broken doorway, magic blazing.

He had gone completely and utterly beserk. Not once – even when he had run off after Sirius – had he had come close to bearing the such tragic, violent countenence that he now possessed. His face alone made Hermione's heart wrench, and she did not dare look at his eyes.

He moved with speed born of natural ability and deep rage, each spell crackling and rendering the air with its astounding light – the result of Harry's intent and willpower pushing spells to their utmost limits.

Voldemort's laughter had stopped, full concentration on his face. He met Harry's attacks – force with force – but unlike the mentor, he found the protégé completely able to match him in power.

There was nothing clever about this fight– no artful transfigurations or charms. – Harry was gunning purely to _murder_ Voldemort, in a simplistically brutal fashion. Killing curses shot out of their wands like green rain and blasts of untold power shook the remaining rafters as though heralding an imminent apocolypse.

Dumbledore and Voldemort's fight had been epic, but this was was _raw_. Hermione could see onlookers step even farther back as the heat from overcharged spells was blistering.

Harry had forced Voldemort away from Dumbledore's fallen body, they had now switched positions.

Still Harry continued at the same pace, his wandwork forcing Voldemort to always be on the defensive. Harry's eyes were craven, bloodshot and his pupils large. Exhaustion was clearly written on his face, his body telling him to lie down but Hermione knew that would never happen.

Voldemort suddenly shot some form of blasting curse at Harry's feet, which Harry promptly banished the debris with terrifying ease. But it was not quick enough, for Voldemort used the momentary lull to use a quick upward flick of his wand and disappear in the same black mist he had come by.

The six or seven spells Harry put directly through it apparently had no effect.

The Great Hall was silent.

Dust from the battles pillowed out and a few straggling rafters could be heard creaking from the bombardment it had taken.

Hermione could hear Harry's breathing – it was so shallow – he was staring out after Voldemort's flight as the silent reality crashed into him.

The rage had disappeared and all that remained was a vast openness within his bloodshot eyes. Hermione, as she gazed at his eyes, had never, _ever_, felt so scared. Harry was going to do something terrible, something beyond the mind's comprehension, he _needed_ to be stopped. She just knew it, deep within she heard her own warnings blare with increasing intensity and urgency.

With fell concentration Harry turned around, all exhaustion inexplicably gone. All eyes were upon him as his soft footsteps echoed. Voldemort's forces could be heard retreating in the background but no defenders in the Great Hall area yet gave chase.

A soft hand gesture brought Dumbledore's fallen wand to rest in his left hand and with unnatural confidence and fluidity Harry bent down and gave the wand back to its rightful owner.

When his hand touched Dumbledore, both of them disappeared without a sound.

.

.

* * * _The Seventh Memory * * *_

.

.

With a shock Hermione realized she was in the room once more - the bookshelves, desk, and everything - but it was different. This was still a memory, no pensive whatsoever and there were papers laying around that clearly showed extensive use.

Harry and Dumbledore only a few feet from her confirmed this. Harry was bent over him, motionless. His hand still held Dumbledore's, and his eyes were closed. His breaths came slow and heavy. The icy cool demeanor he held before was slipping, Hermione could tell.

Yet when he opened his eyes, revealing the tears welling behind, none of that terrible resolve she saw in his eyes earlier had left. With a swift but somewhat jerky motion Harry made his way over to a bookcase.

Hermione could not take her eyes off of Dumbledore, his crumpled form lying so still upon the cold floor. Such life, such energy should be radiating from that body which now held as much life as the stone it laid upon.

So this was where Harry had taken Dumbledore. No one had seen Dumbledore's body afterwards. It was with no small amount of something akin to fear when Hermione looked back to Harry who hurriedly set down a book he had grabbed upon the desk.

He paged through and stopped.

Harry looked back at Dumbledore.

_What was he doing?_

It was then Hermione realized that the look Harry was giving Dumbledore was laced with raw fear.

_Oh God._

She made to run over to the book Harry had opened, to desperately seek what arcane thing he had just read and was about to commit, but Harry was already moving.

He stepped forward with conviction and with a deep and resounding voice,

_DIMI AFFARO!_

A sickly, no-color spell shot out with grotesque slowness towards Dumbledore, and Hermione watched with morbid interest.

When it hit Dumbledore an unearthly scream emitted from Harry that shattered the silence. She saw Harry's wand drop from his taut fingers, his body convulsing as if electrocuted. Slowly, spasms wracking his body the entire way down, Harry sunk to the floor.

Harry still screamed.

Hermione was screaming.

It was then she felt a hand upon her shoulder and saw Harry - the Harry of present day - looking at her with dispassion.

"Time for you to go. You've seen enough."

The last thing she saw before darkness took her away was Dumbledore's body shudder as though being blown by an unseen breeze... and then slowly, with tantalizing meticulousness... sit up.

Hermione continued screaming.


	6. Chapter 6

Here's Chapter 6 - I know it's been a while. If I named chapters, this one's name would be "Answers." A lot is addressed here. Those of you who voiced frustration in being held in the dark will certainly be enlightened here, at least I hope.

That being said, if there's a chapter in this story that is to have major revision, it is this one. Yet despite that I feel quite good about it and rather liked the way it came out. As always, let me know - I'm not one of those authors who are defensive about what I write simply because I wrote it. I know what I want and how it needs to be portrayed but I am always open-minded to suggestions.

I foresee maybe 2-3 more chapters in this fanfic. Things (school) have been extremely busy and I apologize for the wait. Here's roughly 6.5k words written feverishly in a couple days (although mentally planned out for weeks). Lemme know how it goes.

Expect the next chapter around christmas. I suspect it will be done around then. Chapter 7 will also include my replies to reviewers.

**Summary**: AU. Years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter remains a willing and secret prisoner of the Ministry, but not all is what it seems. Harry has a plan, and the world will never be the same.

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

**_Chapter Six_**

Hermione was thrown roughly on the floor, her screams piercing the room.

Through a teary haze she could make out the same dark wooden floor she had been standing on only momentarily before. She whipped around, frantic - the waking Dumbledore was no where to be seen. Neither was the fallen Harry.

Sobs escaped her in uncontrollable outbursts as a shadow cast itself upon her face.

The tall grim form of the Harry of today loomed over her like a specter. His long, dark hair shadowed his face, but his eyes pierced through the darkness and looked at her with complete disdain.

Nearly hyperventilating, tears poured from her wide eyes as she haphazardly backed away from him. She was completely irrational, unable to produce any coherent thought.

The encore of emotions the memories had given her whipped through her mind making her limbless, unable to think or move. She saw more than felt her body sink to the floor, her sobs wracking her.

As she heard the door swing open, she was suddenly possessed by a single driving wish.

"Don't! Don't... _Harry_, don't leave me!"

Her desperate pleas echoed shamefully in the room.

Silence.

The sound of a closing door was the last thing she remembered as she succumbed fully to her overdriven emotions. She laid there for hours, in a growing pool of her own tears.

.

.

.

Strong hands pushed her upright in a chair and she opened her eyes.

An intense green gaze met hers harshly, accompanied by the barest of smirks.

"I suppose you have questions."

Hermione swallowed thickly as she brought her swimming mind back to reality. She had a million questions, but now was _really_ not the time.

Her shirt was crusted with tears, her clothes completely disheveled. She didn't even want to contemplate what her hair looked like - it probably being an accurate depiction of her heart.

"You remember our discussion on runes before my memories, yes?"

She nodded yes, and for the first time noticed a collection of parchments and quills in front of her on the desk once more.

Another lesson.

Her will quailed at the thought of it. She just needed rest... _comfort_. This, she knew, was not going to be coming any time soon, if ever. She was truly and completely a prisoner, held by her once best friend.

"Excellent. Then you'll remember various concepts that make creating a rune possible." He silently gestured for a parchment to float over, which it did gracefully.

Taking a quill, he deftly drew three figures she well recognized - the rope, the trident, and the intertwining strings with no end or beginning. With precision he placed his wand upon the runes and an aluminum cup appeared, rattling lightly upon the desk.

His eyes caught hers momentarily, "Simple. Now you try. We're not stopping till you get it."

She glanced up at him momentarily. His cold stare had only one message - whatever he was doing with her, whatever he wanted, this situation she was in was _not_ a game.

A piece of blank parchment eased its way over to her as well as an ink bottle and quill.

"Now tell me about this cup."

Hermione, for the first time since the her first interview with Harry, truly looked at him. Surely there would be some remnant of compassion, some remote vestige of empathy left behind those beautiful green eyes? Couldn't he even feel the tiniest amount when she looked at him in the state she was in?

It wasn't as though he lacked emotion - as she looked at him staring at her, his eyes glittered and she could see, _feel_ the emotions play across them. In them there was passion, motivation, and fire.

Just not of the right kinds.

She had seen Voldemort's eyes before, and they weren't like Harry's. Harry's still brimmed with life, although they sparkled with the same cold, calculating intellect that she vividly remembered in Voldemort.

Staring at Harry's eyes left her feeling naked, vulnerable, and pinned. But more than anything she felt fear.

It took a moment for her to come to painful realization of exactly why. Harry had always possessed enormous determination, but the singular differentiating element she now saw and recognized within was that he was ruthless. Unlike most insane evil people, it wasn't as if he _did_ feel the emotions needed to be a fundamentally good person and not care...he simply _didn__'__t_ feel them. At all.

Whether this made him more insane or less Hermione did not know, but she did know that it left a cavernously hollow feeling in her heart when thinking of it. Voldemort had never felt such emotions either - he had always underestimated love - but had never sensed or gave such emotions deep thought. But Harry... he could and did. It made him distinctly more dangerous. Voldemort knew well how to manipulate people's fear and hate. He even knew how to manipulate love with hate and fear. Yet Harry too knew this, but he also wielded the ability to utilize the way people feel _warmth_- happiness, hope, and love_._He knew _how_people felt these feelings, not like Voldemort who simply knew that the feelings existed. The nefarious brilliance of Harry's machinations of her and other people had made this painfully clear.

This Harry, sitting in front of her right now... where had the Harry she had just seen in the memories go? What had happened? The Harry who had been so nervous talking to the pretty girl with the ribbon in her hair, so intent on returning Luna's stolen belongings, so adamant on placing protections that would go on to save her and Ron's life time and time again...

It burned her to not know, but she knew asking could possibly be lethal. She would have to go about it cleverly, and ever so cautiously.

She took a large, shuttering breath. Harry merely watched, cat-like in his vigil.

Despite her appearance, despite her writhing emotions, Hermione composed herself. She always had, and always would be able to think under pressure. And this, she had no doubt, was a life and death situation. She had always excelled in what she did, and this would be no exception.

She _always_ excelled.

She concentrated intensely upon the cup, looking at the way the dim lights of the room played upon its smooth metallic sides, how its shadow lengthened and shortened with the candlelight...

She noticed for the first time that the surface wasn't as smooth as she thought. Little, miniscule grooves could be seen, made visible by the low light. She could feel Harry watching her intensely, but she paid him no attention. This was a tough lesson, and she would excel in it.

With a sure motion she made to reach for the cup, but before she could, Harry levitated the cup directly in front of her, anticipating her move. She looked up in question.

"You're doing beautifully, continue."

Somewhat unnerved but continuing anyhow, she took the cup in her hands and reveled in the palpable confirmation of her visual observations. She closed her eyes, she could now _feel_ those grooves, the smoothness it made and how the shadows and light must have felt wrapping themselves lovingly around the curves.

Holding the cup only by its handle she gazed upon the four shadows created by the four separate candle lights in the room. Their ever-changing shadow shapes soon became familiar to her.

With confidence she dipped her quill and carefully drew the runes as Harry had done.

When she looked up at Harry, her wand was sitting demurely in front of him - in front of her.

She could not help the hungry, desperate look that came across her face.

Harry seemed almost amused, "I'm going to give you your wand. Use it only for the purposes of these runes and the directions I give you. I could be more specific about your restrictions but I trust you get the point."

Hermione nodded cautiously.

"Although... If you try anything suspicious, or I suspect you are trying something... "

Hermione tried desperately to appear as non-emotional as possible.

"...I will punish you without hesitation, and most likely enjoy it."

She didn't let it show in her eyes, but the cold sincerity of his voice clashed terribly once more with the Harry she had just seen in the memories. Pushing such thoughts aside she nodded.

With no gesture whatsoever, Harry rolled the wand over to her. She grabbed the wand slowly, but surely. Still valiantly trying to keep her face completely void of emotions, she touched her wand upon the runes.

Nothing.

Huffing slightly in annoyance she once again took the cup in her hand, this time using her other hand to cast water into the cup.

Three more tries with much deliberation and experimentation in between yielded much the same result. Not even a bad cup appeared. Runes in warding are a precise work, and getting something other than what one completely aims for is very, very rare.

Harry, the entire time, watched her like a hawk. He did not make any motions, give any advice, or intervene in any fashion. A sudden, piercing thought possessed her.

_This was not a lesson, but a test. _

Hermione's eyes narrowed in further concentration.

Finally, probably an hour or so later, a pristine metallic cup rattled triumphantly upon the desk. Hermione's eyes soared with triumph and Harry merely nodded.

"Excellent. Now try repeating it, see if you can't cut corners after a while by grouping the individual strands of thought that help wrap your mind around it into conglomerates."

And she did. She practiced for several more hours. Harry even introduced a variety of new runes that she recognized from his autobiography and made her produce the same cup. Then he asked to produce other objects - a pan, a pencil, a quill, a wooden chair, etc.

He was an excellent teacher, she was loathe to admit. Never giving more than she needed, but always giving enough. Stern, yet always providing the information at the opportune time in a strange form of encouragement. She learned enormous amounts and had a decent vocabulary of Harry's runic language down.

It was only after she had produced a full wooden chair that she noticed that Harry was no longer sitting in front of her. He was leaning against a end table, deeply ruminating. It looked like he had been there for some time.

Slowly he looked up at her direction and almost tiredly waved her created chair into the growing pile of her other created items. Another jab and everything but the very cup she had first produced remained.

Harry pushed off to the small table and walked slowly towards the middle of the study room. Hermione staved off the urge to gulp with large difficulty.

Harry stared at her for a length of time.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet, almost soft, "You were close even before you got here to producing these objects like you have."

Hermione merely blinked and began to breath harder.

He summoned the lone cup with his right hand and it hovered above his hand. It turned ever so slowly, rotating with breathless silence. Harry seemed transfixed by it.

So was she.

It was a long while when Harry finally broke his reverie, "The thing is, the progress you've made today is rather... stagnant. 'Inanimate,' to be precise."

He locked eyes with her, and motioned his free hand to his other hand, still holding the object aloft.

"This is a cup. Made of metal, with a palpably finite number of uses. It is, of course, a beautiful feeling to truly _grasp_ the entirety of this cup, yet there is but one main thing a person can take from learning to bring about its existence."

Harry took a moment to gather his thoughts - this situation was one of the few that Hermione had seen him so pressed. He was clearly agitated.

"Naturally, the idea of knowing every little thing about an object and all the subtleties that it brings is invaluable, but that is also obvious. What really matters when first learning the creation of inanimate objects is that notion of _duality_ that I've brought up so many times."

Harry's voice was hard now, his eyes alight with some unknown fire, "Nothing_..._ _nothing_can exist without this concept, Hermione. No inanimate object can, and much more relevantly... " and here he paused, his hands red from being balled into fists, "... no animate object can even think to exist without _duality_!"

The cold intensity that Harry laced his last statement with literally made Hermione push back her chair involuntarily and ram against the desk behind her. In all the recent events, she had never heard him raise his voice before. It was frightening, as it meant that Harry wasn't in control of his feelings.

"_Pay__attention,__" _Harry barked.

Hermione nodded feverishly and fought not to whimper.

He hadn't even pulled out his wand.

Harry stood there like a dark knight, looming over her - practically spewing fumes of anger. She'd never seen his eyes like this. Once, maybe, for but a moment before she had entered the pensieve - but that had been nothing like this.

"Look at me."

She did.

He was breathing as hard as she was.

"_Hermione_. Anything that exists without this notion - duality - is an anomaly to the natural order of things. An abnormality, an aberration, an incongruity with the way things _should_ be... are meant to be. If you see one, know that it is most likely going be one the most dangerous things you will ever encounter."

Hermione's eyes widened - the dawning feeling of realization was beginning to hit her. The enormous pit in her stomach told her that whatever it was, it was big... huge.

Harry swallowed thickly, "Look at this cup. Even something so static, so uncouth as a simple container embodies this concept quite extensively. You should know this. Cups hold water but also dispense. There are other, less comprehensive yet equally fulfilling aspects of duality. Without this dual-nature the cup is not a cup, it is not whole, and essentially dysfunctional... not even making sense."

Harry paused, his voice softer yet still laden with emotion. He continued.

"Yet what about animate objects? What new truths and farces does this bring to the table?"

Silently, Harry gestured and a piece of parchment and quill flew to him as he walked over towards Hermione. The cup slowly lowered itself upon the floor, it's part in this saga now done. He set the parchment in a position where he could write on it and she could see it.

He wrote stream of symbols - one clearly depicting a Firebolt, a hippogriff, snow, and others that clearly delineated the language as his own. Lastly, he drew with astonishing clarity, two wands crossed with each other.

He looked down at her, as he was still leaning against the desk and she seated, "This is my rune for duality. It is my old wand and Voldemort's."

_Brilliant._

"The runes set here create a bird - a dove to be precise. Tell me, if I touch my wand to the starting rune, will it come to being?"

Hermione panicked for a moment as she was not expecting to be questioned, but recovered admirably.

"Yes. If you have envisioned all of the aspects of the bird and truly understand it."

"Correct, but more to the point, what new - as you would call it, 'aspects' - come into play when trying to 'truly understand' a living being?"

Hermione took her time in answering this, it was a difficult question fraught with many layers of depth.

She was about to attempt an answer when Harry interrupted, "Exactly. It's complex - and obnoxiously so. Not only must you conceptualize and grasp the structure and functions of the bird, but its thought process. Muggle biology helps tremendously with this, and it is in fact those of whom have some sort of muggle background that are more naturally inclined to this art."

Hermione looked at Harry quizzically, and Harry almost impatiently responded to her unasked question, "Yes, an art. The moment one steps into warding with animate objects, no matter the amount of precise logic that is involved in the mental preparation, the fact that it is alive makes an animate object's creation an art, not a science."

Harry deftly made his way around the desk and once more took a seat opposite of her. A small wave of his wand and white dove was conjured. Harry used his wand to freeze the creature and look it directly in the eye momentarily before releasing his hold on the bird.

The dove waddled around the desk in no apparent direction, and Hermione's eyes tracked it intently.

"Now, if I were to ask you to tell me about this bird, I would suggest you think of your flying lessons your first year, or perhaps your flight on Buckbeak or the thestrals. Focus and breath in that idea and fulfillment of _flying_."

Not 'our' flight, Hermione noted, but hers. Pushing down her emotions she followed his suggestions regardless.

"I'd then point out the fact that you must realize what animal instincts truly are. They're surprisingly more rational than you think, governed by strong, sudden desires that promote actions solely based on the will to survive."

Harry was beginning to calm down. Whether it was because of the topic of flying - something she knew had always calmed him - or simply the in depth academic discussion, she did not know.

Harry then conjured some seeds on the desk and the dove began to peck at them. He then shot off a spell with his wand and a book on the far end of the study room toppled over, creating a loud crash.

The dove quickly flew to the opposite side of the room.

"Interesting, yes? The dove did not stop to think and analyze, nor did it even look as to what had fallen. It acted purely on instincts, hearing and perhaps feeling the noise and flying off into the other direction without a thought of the food it had been given. Single-minded in thought execution."

Hermione soaked it all in. It all made sense, and her studious mode was fully engaged.

"Yet all of this is fairly irrelevant compared to this. You of course know this dove is conjured?"

Hermione nodded yes, knowing where this conversation was headed.

With no hesitation Harry whipped his wand and a thin blue spell shot out with breathtaking accuracy, and beamed into the perched dove. Despite her knowledge of what was going to happen, Hermione's heart clenched and she grimaced slightly.

The bird did not explode, burn, or any such thing. It merely disappeared.

"Conjured, not real." Harry said simply.

He then touched his wand upon the runes he had drawn earlier and another beautiful dove burst into existence, flying up towards the rafters.

Harry's eyes squinted slightly, and Hermione closed her eyes in resignation. The same laser spell shot out and hit the dove mid-flight.

Hermione gasped but it too - much to Hermione's surprise and delight - did not combust into a bloody heap.

"Again, conjured. Merely an imitation, albeit a very good one as I have a extreme grasp of creatures of flight."

"Now what," Harry said while looking at Hermione intently, "could provide the differentiating factor to creating an animate object that is _real_, not simply a conjured imitation?"

Hermione knew this was not a question she was meant to answer, although she knew it, and remained silent.

A sudden distaste overtook Harry's face, "The answer is surprisingly simple... the creature is merely lacking _life_. It is not alive when conjured."

And with that Harry took his wand and put its tip in front of his mouth. He breathed in deeply with his eyes nearly closed, and blew as if blowing out a delicate birthday candle.

A sinewy silver strand, pulsating in the low lights of the room, slowly emerged from the wand tip. It was as though a cross between a Patronus and a memory for a pensieve, and came out as a plant frond unfurls.

Captivated, Hermione watched as the delicate end of the pulsing silver touched the starting rune.

A beautiful - breathing - dove emerged, calling out to the world, heralding in its creation.

She followed the creature as it flew quiet circles around the room until she caught sight of the look on Harry's face.

Five seconds later the authenticity of the living creature was proved beyond a doubt as the dove now lay dead upon the floor - a thin pencil-sized, singed hole through its chest. With a sudden realization she realized this spell was the one Harry had used against several of the aurors when breaking out of his prison.

The fire produced from the spell was so hot, that it immediately cauterized the flesh it impacted. No blood spilled from the bird.

She shuddered.

Harry was completely unfazed and continued, "As the animate objects upgrade in mental capacity, so do their corresponding decision matrices. Going back to the dove with the food beset by a loud noise scenario - a higher form animal may have thought to grab the food beforehand, or turn its head to look at the noise source."

Harry leaned across the table, "Or, if this animate object was a human - naturally never been done before, nor will it - this decision matrix would become, at times, unthinkably complex. One must not only consider the immediate sensory readings from the area, but whatever emotional affiliations the human has with them. This is where the idea of all this being an art truly comes into fruition."

Harry stood up, unable to remain sitting. Something was off. His normally sure and constant gaze now flitted from one thing to another and his steps were slow and unsure. Harry's unnatural behavior was beginning to severely spook Hermione and she felt herself completely on edge.

Hermione could tell that this conversation, more than any before, was leading to something enormous.

Harry once more took a gulp as he continued, "Let's say that you were creating a human. And in a thought scenario you placed him or her in a situation where they had to choose to save themselves or save others. This is of course extreme, but you'd be surprised to see how any sort of decision, trivial or no, generally boils down to - rarely just one - but a set of black and white questions. For instance - are they a good person or are they bad?"

It took a moment for her to realize that he was actually looking for confirmation. Hermione nodded quickly, completely engrossed into where this conversation was headed.

"The answer is neither."

Hermione looked at him.

Harry seemed to almost find humor in the situation, but he merely huffed and closed his eyes for a split second.

"You are forgetting duality."

_What?_

_Oh... of course._

"_Everyone_, and i repeat 'everyone,' has an evil side and a good side. A person isn't truly 'good' unless they've looked at their own evil and chosen to forgo it. For something to be good, there has to be a counterpart that is equally evil. It is the natural order of things."

Harry had gone oddly still.

"Resurrection is a funny thing," Harry said with a strange voice, and Hermione's breath hitched upon hearing it, visions of Dumbledore sitting up haunting her mind.

"It is different than runes put into a warding scheme to bring something to life in that it uses more arcane sources for life and much less precise magic than runes. And yet it is remarkably similar to the runes method in that one must fully wrap their mind around what's being re-created in order to do so."

Harry was not pacing, nor showing any sign of emotion. His voice was quiet, almost, and strangely hollow.

"When I resurrected Dumbledore... the process required not the breathing of life in - but the transfer of a someone else's life source - a soul."

Harry paused and Hermione's eyes widened.

"This particular resurrection required not a breath of air, but a portion - a half to be exact - of someone's soul. What you saw was the transfer of a half of my soul to Dumbledore, and me thinking of the man Dumbledore was for that soul to embody and grow just as I did now when mentally wrapping my mind around the very existence, purpose, and intent of a dove."

Hermione could barely breath as she listened.

"I was not a big enough of a fool or enough out of the state of my mind to not think of Dumbledore's faults - because he had many - but I was foolish enough to forget one thing."

Hermione's held breath expelled in a giant gasp, as the ramifications of his statement rolled over her. He locked sight with her, his eyes blazing as Hermione answered for him.

"_Duality._"

Harry nodded solemnly and continued.

"I saw Dumbledore's faults as failings, his mistakes as simply erred judgement. I did not, however, see anything he did as _evil._He was - as you saw - literally _everything_ to me. He was my unspoken pillar of what it meant to be _good._He was my father, my grandpa, my uncle, my teacher, and my friend."

Again he paused.

"So as I completed the resurrection by fully wrapping my mind around his persona, I gave no thought to the evil that resided in him - as it does in everybody - and created a soul that was completely good."

Hermione's eyes were beginning to well up with tears as she now finally understood what had happened to her best friend. It was so tragic she didn't even have the means to react, only stare and listen on with increasing horror.

"One doesn't _create _a soul, Hermione. You divide and reshape. A soul will never be as strong as it would be whole, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make... I wanted and _needed_ to make. A soul is made up of a finite amount of elements - good, evil, and a host of other emotional machinations that stem from those. So when you divide it, you're working with finite set."

Harry took some more deep breaths before continuing.

"When I thought of the man Dumbledore was, I only thought of the good. So when the half of my soul embodied my mind's shaping of Dumbledore's persona - it took nearly all good..."

Hermione could scarcely believe her ears.

"... and it essentially left all evil to reform mine."

The look he was giving her was absolutely inscrutable.

He laughed, "Terribly cliche isn't it? One for the story books, no doubt... yet it's true. Terribly, devastatingly true."

He stared at her with his cold eyes. She could not hold his gaze - it unnerved her in ways she didn't understand - and looked down. He continued speaking.

"I suspect when Dumbledore woke up, he sensed the wrongness in his soul and killed himself. He was always vastly smarter than me, and would have figured out the situation and the remedy - there's no counter for the spell I performed - nearly instantly. He probably did not have the heart, or perhaps knew the world needed me to kill Voldemort, so did not kill me."

Hermione could only look at Harry with blatant horror.

"And me," and here Harry laughed, "oh I knew right away what happened. Trust me, it's blaringly obvious when you wake up. Never have I ever felt so _wrong_... yet I am not so valorous as he, not as 'good,' so I did not kill myself, despite every instinct, every iota of my being telling me to. I remained, and still remain alive."

Here he paused, deep in thought, "Yet strangely the turning process was slow. No good resided within, yet I still possessed a sense of _purpose_ that my 'old' soul had shaped and molded into my logic and mental behavior - two things formed separately from the soul. These would be eroded through time. Voldemort helped keep this sense of purpose in tact, and indirectly the growing evil at bay. Yet when I killed Voldemort... I truly began to turn into what you've suspected, believed, and see right now. Me turning myself in was the last good thing I ever did, and even that was done on what seemed right, not what felt right."

And he stopped talking, his head was slightly dipped and the intensity and depth of his thoughts suffocated the room.

Hermione's mind was reeling, and it took her several minutes to put a coherent thought together.

"And what," her raspy voice intoned "do you intend to do with me. _Why_ am i here? What do you want from me? I don't understand Harry..."

Harry nodded while looking at her with fiery concentration, a smile upon his lips, "It's not that I want you here... I _need_ you."

Hermione looked at him fearfully.

"You see, while I may have lost any vestige of my old self from the vileness that inhabits me... I am indeed living proof of no-duality existing when I shouldn't... there is a distinctly palpable feeling of _wrongness_ to the way I am. I should not exist. Like I mentioned, I am an anomaly, and by gods... I _am_ dangerous. More so then you could ever imagine! I also have - as all things do - an urge to find some sort of balance. Do you know what it's like to wake up, live, and constantly feel like you don't belong? Like you should be wiped from the face of the earth? An aberration! It drives you insane_,_oh yes! Even more so and on a deeper level then the kind of insane you believe me to be! When you are an anomaly to the very order of life, _everything_ conspires to remove you, even yourself! Nature always brings things in harmony, a homeostasis of a sort - but there is no such thing for me... You, the ministry, the birds, the bees, the sun, and fuck - even me are all part of the beautiful maelstrom that creates the purgatory I walk in every day!"

At this Harry laughed loudly and swiped viciously with his wand at the dead dove, long forgotten by Hermione, sending it to hit the far wall with a vicious double-thud.

"So that leaves me with you - _You_ are the one that knew me best, and now you know what I've been through and what I've become. I can put the runes together, but I need someone who _knows_them, knows _me_enough to blow the breath of life into what I need from you."

Hermione's eyes widened.

"Hermione, I need you to make me a new soul."

"No," Hermione breathed, scarcely able to believe her own ears.

Harry laughed, a truly sadistic grin emerging upon his face, "I may need you, but I didn't say you had a choice."

"But you said... souls are not - "

"- created, yes. I figured we'd talk details later, but if you insist I suppose we can touch on them now. I'll be needing exactly half of yours, preferably sooner than later after loosing my own."

Hermione could feel her mouth gaping like a fish, as cold hard fear crept up her spine.

Harry was still smiling, "Yes, yes I know! Seems like something out of a fantastical story book, does it not? Surely it can't be true - Lives intertwined with ridiculous absolutes such as good, evil, and souls..." he laughed again, "But it's true, it's _real_, and it's happening! And there is no other solution, but _you_."

He gestured with his hand and Hermione felt the chair beneath her fly towards Harry, stopping only a few feet in front of him. He looked down upon her as one would look at a meal, satisfaction clearly written upon his face.

"Magic involving the soul, life, and re-creation is one of the most obscure, difficult, and dangerous branches out there. Wizards of the past have deigned to call it 'soul magic' but that name is terribly cliche and not at all comprehensive. So many have tried and attempted soul magic and failed miserably, but you and I... we'll succeed! Another adventure, I told you! You and I are going to split, transfer, and create a new soul using my runic language and your breath of life."

Hermione still hadn't quite gotten the grasp of the situation, "But how... I don't know how or what..."

"Who does? but I am as certain as can be as to the 'how.' You really think I spent ten years writing an autobiography? Hermione, I was writing my _future_. I have the theory down, I have the proper runes drawn out, and you've begun your education on its execution."

Hermione sank into her chair, her breaths coming in shallow bursts. She would have to split her soul? She looked at Harry, his eyes were shining - crazed - and looked at her as though it were his birthday.

She had to escape.

Harry was now pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair and looking very much excited.

_He's insane!_

She shook her head. Ron, Ginny, her friends, her parents, her work, her... everything passed through her thoughts. Did she have any choice at all? What he was asking from her was crazy - literal madness. She was to split her soul? She realized her body was shivering. She'd never had anything amputated before but she knew this was what one would feel like beforehand - the thought of losing a part of yourself - forever.

She lifted her head, a sudden question springing to her mind with urgency.

"So you want a soul with both halves - good and evil?"

Harry nodded and added, "The evil that has always been a part of me as well as the good."

"So I should think of how you were before Dumbledore fell?"

"Are you suggesting that this is not who I actually am right now?"

Hermione hesitated before replying, more hopeful then confident "Right."

Harry laughed, "But this is who I am, Hermione! The evil side, left to grow untethered and unbridled, that has _always_ resided with me. You'd be like this too, given the circumstances!"

A sudden evil smirk lit up his face, "Now wouldn't _that_ be interesting... perhaps you'd like a change of objectives? A change of disposition, rather? Would you be my Dark Lady, Hermione?"

A truly snide grin appeared on Harry's face as Hermione balked at the idea and tried desperately to not give it thought. Harry saved her by continuing to talk.

"It could never be, of course. One doesn't think of others in this state unless they need them. Which, at the point your twisted, craven self stood by my side, you wouldn't be needed and we all know what that would entail."

Hermione had a surge of anger as she listened to Harry talk as though she had absolutely no say in anything. He needed her, surely this afforded her some respect!

"Why would I ever do this Harry? _Why?_"

Harry's smile dissipated and he walked over to Hermione who was still seated and peered directly into her eyes.

"You're attempting to make me whole, Hermione. Each day my very existence drives me further into insanity - simply by _existing._ What you see now is not who I should be."

"That doesn't change or take back what you've done" Hermione replied defiantly.

Harry was not bothered in the least, "What if... what if the process brought me back to what I was before - back to the Harry you knew for five years and saw in the pensieve? If you were given the chance, would you bring your old best friend back?"

Hermione's heart dropped to the floor and desperately tried to not look at his emerald eyes, so reminiscent to the Harry he was suggesting.

_Could it be true?_

Hermione once again stared at Harry, who was slowly backpedaling away from her back towards the desk.

"Keep that in mind, Hermione... because that chance has just been given to you."

And with that he took from within his robes several parchments and set them on the desk and turned around.

"You should know that there are more wards and protections on here than my old cell - both more lenient and constrictive than you probably think. I'm leaving you with your wand - trust me when I say to not try anything foolish or obscure. If you do, you will be immediately punished from the wards and most likely me. Clear?"

She nodded slowly, still shell-shocked from his earlier insinuation.

Harry continued, "I'm leaving you now to practice - this isn't going to be easy by any means. You have absolutely no chance of leaving this room unless you can bring that bird - and he pointed towards the decrepit dove - back to life."

He walked to the door silently and Hermione simply stared at him, sitting loosely in the chair.

He turned, "A helpful hint - a dove doesn't have a soul. A soul is what makes a human, human. Or if not human - such as a dog - human characteristics. But a dove is a living being and will prove to be an excellent intermediary point, particularly with the cause of death its suffered. Oh, and no books will nor can help you on this. If you need help, I'll know and provide it. Are we clear?"

Hermione nodded, still stunned. A sudden thought possessed her, "Where are you going?"

Harry smiled brightly, clearly in a good mood, "To make arrangements that you follow through."

Hermione could feel the coldness of his smile from across the room.

"That being so..." his voice drawled, "I'll make sure to tell Ron you say hello."

Hermione stood up, fear and anger roiling within but Harry silenced her with a casual swipe of his left hand, "Hermione... " and his grin fell into a fierce tight-lipped line, "I would suggest approaching this task with a dire sense of urgency - for a variety of reasons."

The door closed, and the sound of a thousand muggle and magical locks clicking into place silenced her yet unsaid protests.


	7. Chapter 7

Hi.

It's been a while, essentially a year actually. I make no excuses for poor update times, other than I've been busy with real life. I am terribly (very) sorry for the wait, though. Apologies!

That being said, as far as the story is concerned I actually intend to finish it in the next month. The rest of the story has been completely mapped out and about 50% written. There are – I think – two more chapters. So if the holidays don't feed me too much and make me involuntarily sleep all the time... this story shall be 'finite' very soon. Thank you, _thank you _for all the continued support for this story. It's truly spurred me on. Please let me know what you think of this chapter and the story in general.

As a recap:

**Summary**: AU. Years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter remains a willing and secret prisoner of the Ministry, but not all is what it seems. Harry has a plan, and the world will never be the same.

Alright let's do this thang.

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

**_Chapter Seven_**

It was autumn, but a whipping, frigid wind heralded winter.

With breathless abandon it ran across the night sky, immediately silencing and forcing all in its path to an immediate subservient and bent homage.

Those who looked outside quickly looked inside, and those unlucky enough to be outside put their head down and took the wind's wrath as best they could.

It was the type of night where things went unnoticed - the night's elements deadened the senses by heightening a select few.

It was silly, really - an age old trick, used in every form and venue imaginable. It was most often seen in war, with a huge attack mounted in one area so that a deadlier one would swoop in unprotected, unnoticed, and relatively unimpeded.

It was when this technique is employed into real-life, everyday situations when its true potential was unearthed.

Feints... within feints... within feints.

_Layers._

It afforded so many, _many_ possibilities.

Anything to lure their attention away from what truly mattered. Poke, prod, and pull people where they are most susceptible and perhaps heal them as well - confusion is best attained when precipitated, consciously or not, by the persons themselves.

People who are confused possess an inexplicable, driving instinct to follow those who are not. It's a phenomenon, really, that such an instinct exists - for in all capacities it bears wondrously similar characteristics to another little human condition called trust.

The thinker's teeth grated slightly.

How many feats, events, and moments of untold grandeur happened on such nights? Nights where even the stars turned their backs, and the sun itself only a distant memory? On nights where one could scream and safely assume no one would hear it?

Such possibilities. He'd already accomplished quite a few.

The pensive man's tall form bent slightly against the wind, moving with patient, feline precision. The figure was hooded, though emerald eyes bore through the thick night, radiating a strange luminance.

The eyes laid their fiery gaze upon a simple, but impressive gate. The manor behind it loomed proudly amidst the gloom of the night.

Harry Potter stopped and stood in silent contemplation a few feet from the gate, seemingly unperturbed.

He scanned the house for any sign of unnatural movement. Wizards often forgot that one's instincts and physical senses were every bit as magical - every bit as potent - as magic itself.

No movements caught his eyes, and after a moment's deliberation, he stepped back.

Even the best hunters lay traps.

Harry extended his arms and gestured with his hand in a sharp jab. Instantly a muted _crack_ could be heard and one of the shutters' hinges broke on the western face of the house. It rapidly clacked open and repeatedly smashed itself against the house.

Harry did not blink as he saw the tell-tale flash of bauble-light being casted on the East side of the house. He tracked the light as it made its way through the house - it was going the exact path he thought it would - the only path it could take - the staircase.

Several silver latching spells flashed in the darkness and the shudders' racket ceased. He felt, not saw - as screening wards prevented him from seeing the occupant - the person scan the courtyard. He saw a few rudimentary spells being cast by the person to augment the search, but they'd be in vain.

He watched no more, he'd learned what he needed to. Same bedroom, same floor layout, same action-reaction personality. He knew where the occupant would be heading now, there was no doubt.

He made his way to the gate once more - it was heavily warded and promised various forms of death for any perpetrator. Stone wolves even stood guard, lining the cobblestone road to this gate, ready to attack.

This was all just fine, of course. After all, he'd put them there, so long ago.

It was time to visit his old friend, Mr. Weasley.

.

.

.

Twenty minutes later found him standing in the master bedroom. Ron laid bloodied and motionless just outside the room - only his right hand edged into the bedroom from the corridor.

Harry looked around with academic scrutiny.

_Good enough._

Casually he put away the switched wand and took out his own.

Hermione's wand had once again served its purpose.

The Ministry was beating down upon his anti-apparition wards and running across the grounds. He could both hear and feel them. It was time to go.

Harry made the motion to apparate but suddenly stopped as his heart clenched painfully.

_No!_

It always happened like this - he'd felt it coming in the past hour or two, but had hoped to have left this house before then.

Harry began to feel himself breathing deeply, almost ragged.

The world was spinning.

_Not now._

_No._

_Not now, not now, not now..._

His mind went into overdrive.

One's instincts are the internal combination of logic, heart, and intuition speaking as one. Harry, more than almost anyone, was instinctual. He listened to himself - always.

Instincts, from what he could surmise - were governed by an ethereal, enigmatic quantity - the soul. Most people's souls carried a solid internal compass crafted and molded by events in their life - even if they didn't listen to it, or completely understand it - it was _theirs_.

Harry's wasn't his. He, as the years had gone by, understood it less and less. As a result, _his _logic, _his_ heart, and _his _intuition- were completely discordant. Out of sync.

Dysfunctional.

How does one listen to the strong voices which do not agree? He existed in a punctured continuum, a constant state of metaphysical purgatory. His soul had been mangled and as a result his personality was becoming increasingly cauterized.

And the byproduct left him like this.

He stood as though he had been shot - as if he was unsure whether to begin registering the damage to his body or simply succumb to the shock of it.

He used to be able to decipher the conflicting views of his internal compasses, but he no longer had that ability.

This was happening more and more often. Irrationality. The inability to keep his thoughts and emotions in their respective place - they were becoming increasingly completely volatile, illogical, random, and _urgent_. One saying one thing, another saying something completely different.

With such potency it made him breathless.

Right now he wanted to kill. Or fly. Or maybe even jus walk the muggle streets of London. He had absolutely no idea.

Through the window he saw a Communicator Auror skitter along the outskirts of the grounds. He raised his wand and a translucent spell came out, sickly in appearance, merely a dark ripple in the air.

Harry watched the spell travel with uncommon intensity, his mouth opening a little. His eyes lit as the Auror's head whipped backward, his brain blown completely out. His partner, facing the opposite direction, hadn't even noticed yet.

Harry's eyes dimmed, and disappointment wracked him. No release. That was not the fix he needed. With desperation he reeled away from the window. Should he read? Go Flying? Panic began to take him.

Both his hands gripped a sturdy wooden chair, leaning heavily against it for support. He vaguely registered that this chair used to be inside Ginny's room, by the vanity.

There had been no real need to watch for the result of his shot, he reflected - he already knew what would happen - after all, he'd casted the spell. _He'd_ know what it'd do more than anybody, right? There were more important matters at hand.

Like himself.

He shook his head violently at what had just occurred. Why had he done that? No release, no reason.

When premeditated murder takes a reckless, unthinkingly random tone, evil can no longer be called evil. It goes by a different name.

_Chaos._

That was it. _Chaos _- not evil. He'd never been evil. He'd never once considered himself evil - thought about it, of course - but had never labeled himself with it. He wasn't evil, he was unbalanced.

Controlled chaos.

Ever since he had reincarnated Dumbledore he'd never _really_ been in control - obviously - or else he wouldn't be the raging psychopath that he knew he was - but he always did have an immaculate hold over his composure, even if misdirected - and the ability to calculate and execute - to follow his misguided needs but with a hunter's patience.

Harry could hear the Auror's getting closer and closer, as well as an anti-apparation shield coming into effect. But he couldn't be bothered, and shook his head trying to rid himself of his heavy thoughts.

People called him insane. Genius, but insane. A truth maybe?

Strange, Harry thought, _strange_ how intelligence so often toes insanity, and how the insane feel sane themselves... if left to themselves.

The ever circulant curse of the loner.

But that was the definition right? Insanity is that which follows a completely different set of logical, social, and intuitive rules (most commonly random, or violent) then what is considered normal by the majority.

He certainly wasn't normal. Things inherently had a _balance. _He had very little of it. And as he was so ruminating on at this moment, even less of it now.

He thought somewhat awkwardly of his outburst to Hermione weeks ago - he didn't regret it - but he'd never voiced his true feelings of being outcast - truly a freak - out loud. His body, his _soul_ didn't function as others did on this earth.

Harry huffed.

They just didn't function in general.

He was like a car that could still drive, but upon closer inspection nothing internal wasn't even remotely close to working.

The matter of his soul wasn't nearly as contrived as he told in his emotional, abridged version to Hermione. Two parts, one good and one bad, directing something as complex as a human was ridiculous. Ridiculous! But he had faith that Hermione well knew that. She'd definitely know that by now.

But it had been necessary to propagate her thought, a kick start topic. It wasn't as though what he had said was false... it was just a very shallow truth. Much as elementary children were told "math" dealt purely with real numbers, addition, and subtraction, the rest of their education would be devoted to expanding that contrived, idealistic, but necessarily introductory manner of breaching the topic.

The fact he had created the two souls only thinking of good_ was_ the initial surface of the problem, but it wasn't what facilitated it afterwards. The real problem was that he had created a soul and left his own soul _unbalanced_. Everything in nature had a rival, or a check. What he had created did not.

The result wasn't one soul that was completely good and one that was completely evil - the real result consisted of two souls that were completely out of control - more specifically - without any form of _duality_.

Harry spun and cast himself upon the chair, looking up at the ceiling and breathing out in short, panting breaths.

His talk with Hermione concerning souls would be coming up soon. It would have to.

She was progressing very well.

He suddenly whipped his head around, hearing a faint echo bounce off the heavy wood frame of the room, a queue of lethal spells about to be thrown out with pinpoint precision. Visions of Aurors bursting through the door flooded his mind and all the possible scenarios coming of it.

And yet nothing.

Only his haggard breathing.

Sudden realization dawned upon him.

The echoes had been real, he _had _heard them, but they weren't from an intruder - they were his own.

He'd been talking out loud the entire time.

Harry swallowed thickly.

A deep shutter wracked his body. A feeling of doom, of barely comprehensible warning possessed him.

It left him feeling even hollower than his battered torn up soul had already subjected him too.

Scared, even.

Definitely scared.

He'd never been so scared in the entirety of his life.

Once again, with increasing frequency, Harry admitted that which was becoming alarmingly obvious.

He was losing himself.

Losing control.

Not having control of the situation around you was one form of fear, but truly not having control of yourself was another one entirely.

Harry suddenly let out a barking, rough halftone laugh.

His metaphysical core was so intensely fucked up it was almost funny. In fact, since he had just laughed, he supposed it _was _funny. If his soul were a solid entity, it'd be riddled with bullets... in tatters.

His soul wasn't fucking torn in _half_. There wasn't even a good and bad side, it just _was_. Good can't be good without a bad, and vice versa. When it came down to it, he had no bloody idea just what that arcane spell did to his soul with any sort of precision.

Oh he certainly knew its effects! What the spell had done was rip things which should never be broken, meld things that should never be put together and the result was a soul that was neither fully his nor in any sort of homeostasis.

Unbalanced, un-whole, and only the gods knew how unholy!

He truly was an anathema. A monster of the human race.

He had no idea what he was, what he existed as right now, and certainly had no idea what he wanted beyond now. Not really. Old people have long given young people the advice to "follow their heart's desire." But that was made under the assumption that one's desires were moderately consistent over time. His... could change by the minute, with alarming deftness and intensity.

It was as though his heart, his mind, and his soul were misaligned, completely at random cycles that never - ever - represented anything even remotely synchronous.

This could be described in minute, excruciating academic detail. But it served no real purpose to do so. As the memory and feeling of his old, true self left him, the chaotic nature of his metaphysical core began to get more and more prevalent. It was beginning to govern him. Prison had helped, but it wasn't going to save him.

Hermione would. She had to. They'd do it together. He, despite everything, had a plan. And even if it were the last thing his chaotic soul allowed him to follow rationally, he'd do it.

He was slumped on the floor but his inner eye's clarity began coming back. He could feel his feet, his arms. His eyes were wet and voice hoarse from talking.

Aurors could be heard scrambling up the stairs.

He wasn't in a state to fight. If he fought, he'd succumb to the inner chaos that threatened to consume him. He could not afford that. Not yet, not now.

Hopefully never, he knew he might never come back.

It was time to go.

A pause.

It was time to go.

It wasn't quite time yet to reveal himself, not to mention completely defeating the purpose of his work tonight. All of the Aurors sent here would certainly know of his imprisonment, but there would surely be by-standers who did not.

It was indeed time to go.

He was once again talking out loud again, he realized, but continued on. Bigger things to worry about, bigger things...

Nothing else need be accomplished here - it was trivial anyhow - as essential as it may be. He had bigger things to accomplish.

Harry breathed out heavily, almost in thankfulness, still on the floor. He was shaking.

There were bigger things to do tonight. Someone to find. He reached into his pocket and made a struggled gesture with his wand.

In silence, he disappeared. Only Hermione's wedding ring spinning upon the floor remained.

.

.

.

Harry Potter tumbled upon at the entrance of Hogwarts ungracefully.

His body laid strewn upon the snow. He didn't move. After a minute he rolled on his back, not bothering to brush the considerable amount of snow from his eyes. He wasn't even aware.

Harry laid pensively, letting the cold wind whip his grey fighting robes as they wished. It was dark, and snow was falling and blowing in a manner that accented the frenzy-like nature of the wind.

_Chaos._

A sense of rare inner calm possessed him as he let the crazed winter winds take him for a few long minutes.

He could read into his change of mood, but he'd rather not.

But still, how Hogwarts always managed to provide him the comfort and love he needed never ceased to amaze him.

He turned his head to put his foster parent in view, blowing the snow in front of him out of the way so both eyes could have a clear view.

New stone walls had been constructed a year after Voldemort's fall and loomed formidably above him. Built of the same stone as Hogwarts and a couple dozen feet thick, its ramparts jutting out like jagged teeth.

His eyes flicked to the massive stone gate. Life-size bronze statues of Hogwarts' most prodigious heroes and defenders through the ages occupied the top of the gate and all about the ramparts. There were close to twenty of them.

The Founders stood proud and tall atop the gate, as though still presiding over the entire grounds that they had given life too. In front of them four wizards stood valiantly as their vanguard.

The irony never ceased to amuse him. Or perhaps nag him, he was never sure.

He stood up, brushing the snow off of his robes.

The four wizards were said to be most formidable fighting duos in history. Venen and Vedran Venmaker, two brothers whose skills with their wands were absolute legend. It was said they moved so fast and fluidly one could never tell which brother cast which spell. They flanked the left and stood back to back - their long hair flying wildly. It was said, but never verified, that their wands were brothers as well.

Harry himself had watched an eon-old memory of the two fighting, and had studied it for many hours.

Harry's eyes rested heavily on the other two wizards.

_How ironic indeed._

Albus Dumbledore stood tall - tall as the founders - with his thick, loose-fitting robes adorning his figure. The sculptor, whoever they were, were good. Albus' wand was held delicately in his long fingers, his body stance reflecting the immaculately wielded power and poised intelligence he had always bore with unparalleled elegance.

With a grimace of bitter humor, Harry looked at the last wizard, Albus' partner.

A bronze version of himself.

The same fighting cloak he was wearing right now was splayed out as though blowing in the very wind that blew at this very moment - his entire stance screamed lightning quick athleticism and blazing firepower. He was slightly in front of Dumbledore, crouched for mobility and to allow Albus to perform spells above and all around him. There they stood - himself and Albus - presiding over the grounds as they had for nearly seven years.

When they had emerged together from his seclusion, they had never - not once - been defeated or forced to retreat when fighting together. On multiple occasions they had single handedly pushed back an entire attack of Voldemort's forces at the Ministry, a field in East Bristol, and a variety of times on these hallowed grounds of Hogwarts.

He had not fought beside Dumbledore when he was murdered.

Harry's gaze turned fiery and his fingers subconsciously clenched.

He'd read newspapers detailing him after Voldemort's fall. They had not known his identity, of course, but they had described the "unknown killer" as "cold and emotionless."

They couldn't be more wrong.

Harry stood up, sure-footed athleticism and confidence once again on display.

He had plenty of emotion. Not just of the cold kind either. He just wasn't sure which ones was his... or why... or how long they'd last... or sure of anything.

But one thing was for certain... he _felt_.

Harry took out his wand, paying no more attention to the statues above and around him. The entrance actually had two gates. A heavy oak gate that swung out opened up to an enormous metal grid gate that was to be pulled up. The oak gate had two gigantic door knockers. These were not, however, what he needed to focus on.

Leveling his wand, gripping it with both hands, he heaved a large, heavy spell - consisting of nearly neon blue - up, over the gates and ramparts, streaking across sky like a beacon. It was a flare.

_But not a beacon, an inquiry._

The streaking blue spell dissipated into Hogwarts' wards.

Harry stood silently, eyes alert and body tense as he silently cast defensive precautions in the whipping snow.

There was no need for complex invisibility, camouflage procedures, or whatever crazily concocted method one came up with to acquire entrance without gaining notice - Hogwarts always knew.

There was simply no point in trying.

Only the winter winds filled the nights' sounds.

Suddenly the gates were covered in a thin film of bright cerulean blue for a moment and stood still and silent. Creaking filled the air, and gears could be heard moving stubbornly. After a few seconds, the enormous doors began to open.

_Intriguing. Always intriguing._

This was not the first time he'd entered Hogwarts since the War's end. Not by a long shot. He'd been here twice since he'd left his imprisonment, alone. This being the third, and each post-imprisonment visit the doors had simply opened for him as though a gracious host.

The first time he had re-entered had been obscenely violent. The moment the castle penetrated his aura - much in the manner the Sorting Hat did so long ago, but in a less physical, direct sense - it sensed the falseness and foreignness that his battered soul exuded and attacked without abandon. Guardians he hadn't even known about came at him and walls closed in. The entire castle rebelled against him. False visions were implanted and fake doors set before him.

He had counterattacked with a viciousness born of a single, driven purpose. He was searching for something - someone - and at any cost, whether it be an army, a castle, or both in front of him... he'd get to them.

As he had been taught, magic left traces. But what he had learned by himself a couple years later, was that people's presence left them too. "Traces," in the present tense. Someone, if tuned in enough to the person and their magical aura, could literally feel the living presence of someone's magic actively interacting with the world, not just where they had tread, but where they were _treading_.

His instincts, no matter how convoluted his soul was, were almost always spot on. He felt it. He'd felt it for years.

..._Always at Hogwarts..._

Why did it always come back to Hogwarts?

..._always at Hogwarts..._

Harry began walking through the gates, magically sifting through the air like a desert visionary. His fighting robes flapped in the wind but he paid them no mind. A single question broke his concentration, one he was very familiar with.

_Hogwarts had apparently let this person completely in, but not himself?_

He shook his thoughts away. He'd been down that path before, and if he continued such thoughts he would go in circles, yet again. This was not a philosophical outing, It was a search party. One that he'd conducted many, many times and was becoming increasingly urgent to be completed. If Hogwarts decided to lash out once more, so be it. He'd come in whether Hogwarts wanted him to or not. He'd always fought back and always walked out.

He never had a particular routine to search - he always just walked in, and let his instincts tell him where to go. He wasn't looking for an object, a room, or even an idea.

He was looking for a person.

Someone whom he _knew_ would have never left the world in the circumstances in which he had disappeared. He still felt that person - they hadn't left yet - of this he was certain.

Their magical latency, their personal signature still resided in this world and it called to him, beckoning and calming him, lecturing and speaking to him - _mocking_ him as though he _needed_ that presence. And Hogwarts - no other place - was where they would be.

Not "would be," _is_.

He was positive of it.

He was looking for a person.

A person who knew him better then he knew himself. The only person he knew could stand up to him, possibly defeat him. More importantly - understand him - before and now. Especially now.

A person who, when they died, had left no body.

_Meaning - beyond any shade of doubt - that they hadn't died. _

He needed to talk to that person. Desperately. They would understand. Between them a solution could be found, if anyone could do it, it'd be them.

Why hadn't that person found him yet? Why were they hiding?

If worse came to worse, he'd kill them. He had no idea what state they'd be in. It was a convoluted logic, but it made sense. If the person proved worthless, put them down. He knew how volatile and violent they'd be.

Then - maybe - he would regain a portion - maybe even more than he thought - of his battered, torn up soul. Either that, or his soul would no longer be split into mangled versions, but just one.

And one was always better than two.

He wasn't positive any of this would work, not at all. They were all secondary plans at best, and an insurance to the first. But oh was he desperate... so painfully desperate.

Every day was agony, every moment. The constant, almost overbearing feeling that you were _wrong_. A blemish, a scourge, something that quite simply did not _belong_. A hundred, million, billion times worse than how he felt being an abused orphan at the Dursleys. There he had convinced himself and believed he didn't belong - a freak. But now... he truly was a freak and _knew_ he didn't belong. There was no need for convincing. It just was.

Strange how even the most acclaimed and infamous accomplishments could truly mean and do nothing.

There really was a sense of urgency.

Every day - he could feel it, just a few minutes ago was a perfect example - he was getting more unstable, unpredictable even to himself. He needed to perform the runic ceremony with Hermione soon, or some sort of intervention, or else a variety of the runes would be rendered useless... his _ether_, or inner self, was finally falling completely apart. It wasn't that his views and perspectives were changing... it was the fact that they were were not changing to something, but changing to nothing.

Soon... _he_ would be nothing.

He'd be Chaos.

It was, perhaps, too late.

But when had he ever given up?

_Never._

Lifting his hands once more, as though paging through the very air before him, Harry Potter started walking forward once more.

Searching. With urgency.

It hadn't escaped him that the blue that had covered the doors when he was given entry were the exact same color as the eyes of the man he sought to find.

Albus Dumbledore.

Perhaps they could find the answer.

.

.

.

Hermione sat, tapping her wedding ring upon her desk with nervous energy. On the desk sat a single parchment Harry had given her.

"The key," Harry had simply said of it.

_Circles_.

It had everything and anything to do with circles.

In fact, the entire sheet (more of a poster, really) was covered _only_ in circles. They were interlocked, some circles linked with more circles than others. Each circle was made of tiny, but exquisitely drawn runes which she immediately recognized.

It was, in fact, the partial blueprint that would supposedly make Harry's soul something close to whole by carving out her own.

The very idea of it was both breathtaking and ridiculous. It was far-fetched, almost as though a simpleton had created the concept and idea.

Contrived, but complex. She shook her head. Something wasn't right.

Then again, as she mused further, _nothing_ about this situation rang anything close to sounding right.

Creating the cup had simply been a trifecta of three runes, more complicated things such as a vase required a full circle of six or seven. But when things bore life... the shapes in which the runes were placed in were incredibly intricate. It looked like a bundle of wires intertwined in a twisting, random manner. The "wires" were pulled out significantly to allow the eye to discern them separately but it did not by any means make reading it easy.

The places where the separate rungs crossed either went over/under each other or had a rune that serve as an intersection. Just as a normal language, there were these "conjunction" runes that tied together important concepts, and in a physical sense had many strings of runes running through them. For instance, Harry's rune for what she termed as "hesitation" was crossed many times. Harry's rune for duality was crossed by - in one form or another - almost every rung.

Almost. The ones that didn't were interesting.

Something definitely wasn't right.

She had quickly realized that each rung were in fact constructed from a singular page in his autobiography.

He had said that once she understood the relationships from - and he had pointed to a particular rung - 'this' to - and he pointed to another small rung on the other side - 'that,' and all the permutations, then she'd be ready for what he wanted.

"_You should be able to take a situational moment in my life, place it on points on this conglomerate, and follow the appropriate paths on the rungs. You will know you are right when you can trace a logical path straight back to those points - one path doesn't necessarily have to come back to it's original point, but to one of the original points. Life is cyclical, and so is this - it is of course emulating a life creation... me. _

_And this makes even more intuitive sense, right? Energy is never - ever - wasted. Rather, it is conserved. Everything comes back to where it came in one way or another._

_It is in this way I seek to emulate the circular nature of runes, magic, and life in general. My autobiography, or rather, 'my being,' is in fact pictorially and metaphorically represented as these circles. What we seek to do will place an interweaving set of rungs that will do the actual transferring/dividing of the souls. I will be writing those. They will complete what I'm sure you've noticed is missing."_

He had pointed to the duality rune, of which there was only one.

Could it really be that simple? His answer had addressed her concerns and more but it still seemed off.

She pushed away from the desk and stood up.

She'd had enough for the moment.

She was as the circles right in front of her - interlocked, unable to be freed. It got to her from time to time.

She had originally had thought of escape or some foiling of Harry's plans but it was simply too much - too much information, too much emotion. She was just barely above the surface as is. She well recognized the tone and manner in which Harry was teaching her - he was not teaching her to create, but to simply build.

Academia - and indeed any field - could always be measured in levels of competency. Anyone of decent ability could follow instructions - it was those who could make their _own_ directions and _create_ that brings their expertise in the field to the next level. Harry was very purposely and actively making sure she didn't cross that threshold. She understood and was learning a lot - but not enough to deviate, or in other words... give herself a chance to fight back.

She pushed back from the desk in mild frustration.

For weeks she had agonizingly studied the runes, building rudimentary objects to complex ones such as the dove Harry had done. It was comparable to being given an enormous mathematical proof with all the steps lined out, but the reasoning behind each step left blank.

Harry had given her the full compendium of his runes and a list of objects in which she had to complete, in order. It had helped tremendously that she had poured over his Autobiography so extensively - as she had already memorized all of the runes, had partially translated them correctly, and had been primed very nicely to learn the others.

She wondered, not for the first time, how much of this Harry had planned out. When she really thought about it, the entire experience had been an informal and uninformed training of her for Harry's scheming.

She had no doubt he had planned all of it.

And to make matters worse he was now free to roam the world and plant whatever devious and ingenious seeds of his thoughts to sprout into some similar horror of reality that she was now encased in.

She had tested her knowledge of the blasted paper by placing events in Harry's life, and seeing if it made a logical circuit back to the points on the conglomerate that she picked. After many hours of trying event after event with Harry's guidance and by herself as well, she realized her initial mistake - some of the runes were strictly derived from the Harry _now _and she was still stuck on on interpreting them with the Harry from _before_. Somehow she still had trouble pinning Harry to such horrid rune derivations.

There's a relatively recent rune, a toad - but not just any toad - Neville's. The toad had been the only thing left alive at Neville's house, and it had been stripped of its non-venomous glands and frozen in _just_ the same portrayed manner as he had been stunned first year when trying to stop them from going to the Sorcerer's stone. It was that detail that initially told Hermione it was Harry who was committing the murders.

It had taken a very, very clever detective to find that the juices from those glands had been used in the predominantly herbal poison that killed Neville. Harry was now using that toad to represent a herald of something dark. A foreboding omen. If you were to create a string of runes that represented the emotional upheaval upon seeing dark, billowing smoke... this rune would inevitably be there.

And yet, the runes from Harry's "lost era" she was getting quite apt at.

Her mind - reluctantly - again tried an example. Something simple. Her mind's eye placed Harry randomly meeting someone insignificant to him, but relevant - Parvati. How would he feel or react? With extreme indifference, but he would not disregard her. Harry noticed details, stored them, and played with them. He was almost feline in that sense - played with what was around him until he needed it - or didn't. He toyed with things, but not in some senseless fashion. He would probably think to perhaps use her in the manner he had done to other people of his past in the string of murders he had committed, or use her as bait to get whatever parcel of knowledge his mind wanted to know.

Many times during these thought scenarios she would always pause on the question of whether he would feel regret.

She could never quite quiet this internal question.

The initial response was 'of course not.' But it didn't fit, it didn't feel right. He was not Voldemort - the absence of humanity. Rather, he was the absence of half of it. Harry _felt_ - she could sense it, see it, feel it.

And yet...

Something did not add up.

Although it seemed to add up perfectly within the parchment of circles Harry had given her.

And yet the few times he deigned to explain certain thought processes to her of his own, she couldn't help but notice that the manner in which he portrayed it and conveyed it revealed a Harry who was strangely... emotional.

And yet she was interpreting and using essentially what was a map to Harry's being that was based on him _now._

_That's_ what was off.

.

.

.

She found herself walking back and forth, gazing at the many volumes of books encased in the cozy, but spacious study. Harry had told her explicitly not to use books to augment her studies.

It was no matter, as nothing in the library could help her. What she was learning was not in any other tomb or book - indeed the material was literally taught using an alphabet known by only one person. What references she could ever have she had on her desk.

No library in the world could provide her what she needed.

It didn't mean that she hadn't spent hours searching for the book that Harry had found that dreaded, arcane spell.

It had, of course, long been removed.

The books that did remain were numerous, rare, and incredibly interesting. There was a punishment for reading them, however.

Harry had placed various amounts of protective wards around what books she would find more than a casual interest in. And cruelness of it wasn't even the pain that resulted, but the fact that each ward placed bore an immediate and serviceable constructive learning aspect for studying the runes.

The runes he used to make the ward were written on a small sheet of parchment. If she was able to fully understand the new combinations of runes she could try to replicate the ward on that sheet of parchment. Sometimes, if she managed to get it right, she was then able to read the book... sometimes. The other times she was simply left with a new and harsher ramification than the first.

Only several days ago did she realize that if she figured the (unwritten) runic combination that the secondary ward possessed, she could also then read the book.

It was pathetic for her to even try but staying in the same room studying the same thing for who knows how long makes one desperate for something else to do.

She had managed to open and read 5 books. Harry took them once she had finished with them.

Despite feeling like a complete lab rat, her learning ability of Harry's runes was increasing dramatically. She knew she would be performing the task soon. Harry was noting her progress as well and was increasingly coming in to perform new tasks with her.

She had even begun to experiment on her own - runes were something she had always been vastly fond of studying - and now she had one of the most prolific runemakers the world has produced teaching her, guiding her, and leading them on a truly maiden voyage into the art.

She desperately wanted to try her own runic alphabet but knew it was beyond her at the moment. Besides, Harry kept careful surveillance of any runic characters that were not his own. She was also unable to experiment on runic creations that bore life without Harry's supervision - if she ever tried (and she had only tried once) to blow life just as Harry had done with the Dove, immediately her world had gone black.

She had found herself laying slumped against a wall, several feet from where she had been sitting.

All in all, she was once again excelling at what she put her mind to. It had come at a cost, however. She had complied completely to Harry's rules.

She still bore thoughts of resistance and escape but there simply was no outlet - no tangible end to entertain and sustain such thoughts. Time was a continuum. Asking, pleading, begging, rationalizing, etc etc for anything besides what Harry stipulated was met with cold indifference and usually punishment.

Once when pleading Harry for some news of Ron, Harry had simply nodded and said, "Fair enough."

Hermione had been so shocked she didn't even respond.

"_May I see your ring?"_

_Hermione looked with sudden suspicion._

"_What is a simple way of testing whether or not an object is conjured or otherwise artificially produced?"_

_Hermione's expression was a combination of dawning horror and resentment at being asked such a simple question._

_Harry merely shrugged and his lips raised slightly in what could maybe be interpreted as amusement, "What? Too simple a question for you? Well, then produce a simple solution. Think of a test - proof by example."_

_Hermione gulped, she had gotten somewhat used to and not as intimidated as before but this conversation was the first one in some time that was strictly non-academic and was distinctly unsettling._

"_Fire. Very hot."_

_Harry nodded and gestured with his hand. A condensed and intense fireball rotated slowly between them. The heat was almost unbearable and she backed up involuntarily._

"_Throw the ring into it."_

_Hermione conceded, almost willing her mind, as she put her fingers around the ring, to believe in the integrity and trueness of the ring. She didn't even know what it would all entail if it were false._

_The ring, upon reaching the fire, vanished immediately._

_Anger roiled within her and she stood up, wand out, "Where is the real one?!"_

"_Ron has it."_

"_Why." A command, not a question._

"_You returned it."_

_Hermione's anger was temporarily put at bay by her shock. The only reply that could come out was simply, "Ret - what?! How?! ... What did you do with __**my**__ ring?!"_

_Harry was smiling by this point, and beginning to walk away to the door._

"_I took it. Ron has it. Because you returned it."_

"_I did not return it."_

"_Obviously."_

_Hermione merely shook her head in a silent stupor. What was he playing at?! "Yes, I bloody well know __**I**__ didn't return my __**own**__ ring!"_

"_But Ron doesn't," was his parting reply._

_Hermione could only guess at what had happened and had learned very quickly that it was simply easier to comply and not ask about the outside - there was no way of verifying the validity of whatever he said anyhow. She had gone on a boycott of Harry's project after that but it had been dispelled by the simple statement that he could retaliate in a way she could never do in this situation. And, as Harry was so pertinent to point out, this time he'd prove it's validity._

"_Perhaps we can practice revival on Ron then? It'd be nice to practice on another human first."_

Hermione burned with anger at the memory. Several minutes later she partially regained herself and sat up from her desk. She began her well-worn path of walking by the bookshelves, hoping that the books would once again calm her as they had for so many years.

_Why_ had Harry changed so drastically? She'd seen all the mechanics, seen it in person even, and yet it still defied logic. He'd been such a wonderful, _wonderful_ person.

A thought came unbidden to her mind that she had been desperately trying to force out over the past couple weeks.

There was a certain type of intimacy that was gained when learning something so intensely personal as a runic language based on a person's _being_. It could not be helped. She now knew Harry better than she had, _ever_. The whole process had forced her to relive all her old memories, all her old thoughts, and all the new ones too and look at them with a fresh and sharp perspective. Months, basically years had been dedicated to this process and it left her feeling a very _very_ strong sense of connection with Harry. He might have no problem with no attachment, but she had no such resiliency, even with the amount of dislike and fear she held towards him.

They were once again able to finish each other's thoughts, words, as they had before. She was reminded almost daily why they had been such amazing friends... quite bluntly, they simply had a connection.

And it was obscenely uncomfortable. He was cruel to her, nonchalant, and yet...

She cared.

And she simply couldn't help it.

.

.

.

He was halfway between his explanation when she figured it out.

"...so your breath _is_ your wand, you are imbuing the object not with magic, but with _life_. A life that _breathes_. That is the underlying, fundamental concept. You are the giver, and a necessarily confident one at that. The first time you created a dove was something of an accident. Now this... this was not. Could you tell the difference? Do you know..."

And that was when she knew.

She knew what was off.

As always, it wasn't the material she was learning that was wrong, merely her conception of it in her mind.

Harry had noticed her epiphany and was merely staring at her.

"Speak to me."

"I... I just realized..." Hermione stuttered, still not able to comprehend her racing mind.

Harry merely waited silently, oddly polite. He leaned against the desk and stared, letting her gather her wits.

Hermione was breathing hard, what she was about to say seemed so ridiculous it was dangerous.

But the worst part... it was _true_. Oh gods it was true.

"You... you, _feel_."

Harry's eyes smoldered, narrowing, "go on."

Feeling tinier than she ever thought possible, she pushed herself to continue, "All this time, all these years I've considered you black, completely evil."

"And," Harry filled in for her silence, "like all things, they aren't black and white... but infinite shades of grey."

"Yes!" she said, both from thankfulness of him filling her silence and simultaneously lending credit to her enlightenment, "which you are - sometimes - "

"Most of the time, if not all."

"Yes, but it didn't start that way! Right? A 'gradual descent'! _That's_ why I've been having trouble with your runes at times! Quantifying you as "good" or "evil" simply doesn't work - too static - ... you're... I... I don't know what to call it..."

"Am I 'good'?"

"No."

"Am I 'evil'?"

She paused.

"Not exactly... you're different than Voldemort. He simply couldn't _feel_, you can. I know you can!"

Harry carried on, composed but hauntingly still and intense, "So am I both?"

Hermione thought about this one. He wasn't one or the other...

"No."

"Of course not, or else what would I be?"

Hermione had answered the last one on pure intuition, and was forced to think it through. The answer came to her after a minute of deliberation.

"You'd be your old self."

"Exactly. And pray tell, _why_?"

The answer came out of Hermione's lips as though a reverend speaking the very word of god.

"_Duality_."

"Beautiful. Now, what does that leave me now?"

Hermione had no intuition on this one, and merely shook her head slowly in confusion and for some reason, growing horror.

"I'd be surprised if you had an answer, for I juggle for one on my own nearly every waking moment. But if I had to give one, if history were to anoint me with such a label, you can use the word 'chaos.' It's as apt as any."

The stood there, her holding a lifeless dove, and he leaning stiffly against the desk for the heaviest waking moment of her life.

"But if this is an indication of anything," said Harry, as a darkly amused smirk came across his lips.

Hermione gulped.

"Is that you are ready" and walked with smooth footsteps to the door. He turned around, an odd expression upon his face, "Keep practicing. Three days."

And the door shut.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:**

Hellooooooo.

Here's the second to last chapter. Lots of things happening here, I really hope you like it. The last chapter is well on it's way, but you know how it goes… could be posted next week, or possibly next year. Things are about to get (un)real.

I will also say that there will be a chapter posted after the story is finished solely dedicated to answering and acknowledging the many great reviews I've received, because I truly am grateful and seriously read each one.

An aside:  
>I <em>have<em> finished the first chapter of a new story, not yet titled. It is a Harry Potter x Game of Thrones crossover and will be posted in a week. Please check it out if you're interested, it's completely different from this story.

**Summary:** AU. Years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry Potter remains a willing and secret prisoner of the Ministry, but not all is what it seems. Harry has a plan, and the world will never be the same.

Onward!

**The Prisoner's Cipher**

**_Chapter Eight_**

"So if this should work, will you then end up with a full soul and I with only a half?"

It was simple math.

Harry had stopped his wand-work of readying the study for what Hermione had termed "the event," and merely looked at her with a quizzical and a completely undisguised, disgusted countenance.

She knew it couldn't possibly be this simple.

And yet, when she didn't have any answers with some form of proof of concept, what other question could she really ask?

It was a dangerous one to ask as well – delving both into topics Harry did not consciously tune her in to, as well as the simple travesty of possibly pushing Harry too far - A grievous and tricky line to toe.

Hermione waited with bated breath, raising her eyes to meet his.

His eyes had always, and would always, tell more than the rest of him ever would – and what she saw sent a terrifyingly redundant course of fear through her body.

Hermione, since fully comprehending Harry's chaotic state had been on continual state of fear the past three days in a way that she'd never felt before.

She knew fear – quite well – but this was a new brand. It left her completely and utterly on edge. It was similar to the feelings one gets when cornering a wild beast – the beast would try absolutely anything to escape. Now if one could imagine that beast cornering _you_ with that same mindset….

Fear in its purest form.

Hermione had always conquered fear through knowledge - knowledge always shed light on a situation and allowed one to plan for the future. Planning for the future removes the unknown, the root cause of all fears.

But with Harry… you simply couldn't. Not enough to remove her fear in any large sense. He was too smart to let her have too much of a read on the situation and too chaotic on the inside to keep palpable patterns.

And they truly – truly - did need to do perform the event soon. Harry was wasting away to nothing. Upon her realization a few days ago, it had really dawned upon her the enormity of what was happening inside of him and what it meant.

She remembered when she first saw his iron control break in front of the veil, and then again after the memories, and the little – at then insignificant – instances during their lessons when he would just _snap_ - random acts of strange cruelty or even what could be called empathy.

She saw himself wage war with himself, a hundred times over. It was a scary idea to her that he seemed to be scared of his own thoughts.

Her hand tightened around her wand, even though she knew she may as well not have one – deranged or not, he'd always been able to pull himself together in times of need.

She took a step backward as his eyes closed.

His eyes opened once more, the gale force swirls of emotions once present were now somewhat mollified, though still churning.

"It doesn't work like that. There aren't necessarily parts or factionsof a soul, but the _states_ of it."

Hermione stared back with a blank expression, partly from confusion, partly from the abrupt departure of her previous thoughts.

Harry turned his back and once again began waving his hands, causing books upon books to stack themselves and levitate out of the room.

Hermione had still never seen another room but this one, except the small makeshift bathroom attached to it.

"Think of infinity."

Hermione's eyes narrowed, her logic nearly onto what Harry was about to say.

"Can you divide it?"

"Yes. Well, I mean you –"

Harry cut her off, "Can you add to it, or perhaps subtract from it?"

Hermione, a bit annoyed, "Same answer as before, but you wouldn't let me – "

"Stop saying words that contribute nothing" snapped Harry, turning around from his work amidst floating book piles, "we all know the answer, but what does it actually _mean_? Put it into context, then what?"

Hermione paused. How does one divide a soul? Partition it and add to it? Can you have more than one? These were thoughts she had sifted through before many times and a good answer, much like this time, had never come forth.

Harry replied, as though to her thoughts, "There's obviously no concrete answer but one can certainly postulate with a degree of accuracy."

"Think of when you add one to infinity… it's still infinity. A number plus another number that isn't zero should be what?"

Hermione replied without thinking, as she didn't need to, "A different number."

"Exactly," and Harry simply stared at her.

She stared back.

"So infinity's a concept, not a number… yes, I see your point."

"Precisely, so the soul is not an entity that cannot be quantified in any meaningful way – in the sense that you could never innumerate or describe it in a manner that, say, could make it be able to be sold in a marketplace."

Hermione did not let the hope she had within her heart reach her face, but it must have reached her eyes as Harry quickly replied, "The answer is yes, I believe so."

Hermione breathed out her reply in a quick-like fashion, realizing she'd been holding her breath, "So… I could be whole."

Harry didn't move, a strange expression in his eyes, "even though divided, yes."

"But why couldn't – "

"I was young, and the process that it happened with wasn't anything near as smooth as this."

They stared at each other a good while.

She could feel her mouth begin to speak even as a warning light flashed in his eyes, but her question had already slipped out, "I still don't see how I cou- "

Harry's posture relaxed but straightened – never a good sign.

"I – although under different circumstances – fought the same fight you are about to undertake."

Hermione did quite know what to say. "And…?"

Harry stood up, opening his arm slightly gesturing lightly towards himself, a showman's smile upon his face.

"I lost."

He sat back down and a heavy silence settled. Minutes passed by.

"But, you – "

"Look," Harry snapped, "you know yourself, had a loving mother and father to build it, formative years to strengthen and mold it, and a loving marriage to cement it."

He took an authoritative step towards her, his teeth were biting the inside of his lip in an almost contemplative manner.

"Now, did you truly just want me to say that out loud or are you _actually_ close enough to severe mental retardation to not realize all this?"

Panic took a hold of her "No! No, I jus…" Hermione's heart lurched uncomfortably, "I wasn't asking about me, not me! I mean if you – like the memories showed, the memories…" she was mumbling but she couldn't stop herself "of the building between you and Dumble – "

Hermione didn't even see Harry move.

All she was aware of was her head backlashing with intense pain and her body cartwheeling backwards several feet. She looked up in shock and pain, the oozing taste of blood in her mouth as the ceiling spun slightly amidst the stars in her eyes.

Another spell shot-gunned her to the floor once more.

Harry suddenly appeared standing directly above her wand pointed at her throat. His eyes glowed with venom.

"Don't finish that statement" he snapped in a painfully venomous, yet hauntingly silent voice. With his hand he magically pulled her head up from the floor so she was facing directly at him, "and _don't_ talk to me about Dumbledore."

She could tell he was going to say something more, but for some reason he stopped and merely stared her in the eyes with alarming intensity.

Two long moments passed before she registered a slight cracking sound and all went black.

. .

. &&&&&&&&& .

. .

"Listen."

Hermione sat up from the hard floor as Harry's face swam into her slowly clearing view. Her head was pounding, but Harry paid her no mind as he continued.

"Your soul will be under an enormous amount of duress, your entire being will be mixed up – broken - and it will be up to you to siphon and mold it to what you used to be… what you _are_."

Hermione nodded slowly, even as blood began to trickle out of her mouth. She didn't dare brush it away.

He continued talking. Every word annunciated with a strange slowness.

"You – unlike some - have had a childhood of relative stability, harsh times to flesh out and further define yourself, and then stability afterwards in your work and marriage to smooth and solidify yourself. Throughout the entirety of that path you had no undermining forms of corruption – in other words, second guessing – except for your initial and continual revulsion and hesitancy to kill."

Hermione's heart lurched as the truth of his words rung clear and true.

"But this is both normal and expected, do you know why?"

Hermione's brown eyes stared wide eyed, still held in his magical grip.

"Because it matches in line perfectly with whom you are – Hermione Granger does not kill. You are not a killer - your only form of corruption is in fact cleansing you. As such, from both this and your inner strength, it may be that you'll be able to reform and regroup yourself afterwards."

He looked quizzical.

"Perhaps not the same… definitely not the same. But stable. 'Stable' is the word I am looking for and maybe you shall find."

And he released his magical grip and her head unexpectedly hit hard upon the floor, she involuntarily let out a yelp.

But it did not stop the thought she had been thinking. She sat up as best she could and spoke without thinking, "Harry."

His suddenly stilled body was his only indication that he was listening.

"You… " she found herself nearly breathless, "you know me well enough to write my own runes… like you did yours… don't you."

He stared at her, and silence answered her question.

The answer was both shocking and jarringly open. It left her speechless. For someone to know her like that… especially Harry now… simply blew her mind.

She could even see him breathing harder, eyes roiling with emotion.

He walked past her without a word and bent down.

The books were all gone and he began inscribing the runes into the thick, dark wooden floor. With smooth strokes of his wand, laser-like fire lashed out like channeled water, and he began to produce runes that were crisp and of pinpoint precision. They were roughly the size of a small butterfly.

She wasn't expecting him to speak anymore, so his next words startled her, "I've always been able to - both you and Ron. You, Ron, and Dumbledore were the only friends I've ever had. I paid attention. It shouldn't be that surprising."

Hermione could not help but look at him – Harry – _her_ Harry in a way she had yearned to do and feel for so many years.

Harry had stopped inscribing and was only looking at the floor, his chest visibly heaving up and down, "I highly suggest you stop looking at me like that… Hermione."

The power of a name.

She couldn't stop looking. There was no way. She wanted to crawl towards him – to talk, hold, to hug him, _something_.

With monumental effort she forced her gaze down, trying desperately to control her raging emotions.

When she looked up again he was smoothly cutting more runes into the deep wooden floor. The hot liquid flame coming from his wand emitted ebbing and flashing light that danced cryptically on Harry's face.

She watched him for a long while.

Harry suddenly looked at her, a strange glint in his eye.

"You do realize, that that ability is also why it was inanely easy to manipulate both you and Ron to do what I needed, right?"

She nodded tightly, the warmth that had possessed her now seeped away. A question came to mind.

"And if I hadn't been tricked into releasing the wards? What then?"

"I could have gotten out. The very first day, or the last. Any time I wanted, essentially. But this way was the best. I've left both confusion for the Ministry, an open slate for me to write with the public, and you here with me with the necessary boundaries and checkpoints to make sure you're doing what I want you to do."

_Merlin. _

Hermione simply stared and bit her lip a little harder.

"And – you forget - I turned myself in. I needed to be in a magically draining place. I was, and am losing, complete control of myself. It slowed the process in time for me to come up and fulfill what needed to be done to get me out of this living hell. It was a stabilizer."

Hermione once again reluctantly reflected on just how thorough he'd been. A sort of hopelessness took ahold of her but left her with a strange feeling of daring.

"You really don't seem evil to me." His eyes darted towards her but she continued, "despite whatever heinous acts you've committed, what I've translated, what I've learned - I sit here with you and that is what I see. What I feel."

Harry stared hard at her, but answered infinitely more calm that she could have ever expected, "Chaos is not truly marked by evil, but by extremes of both kinds."

Both of them sat contemplating those words, and only the small searing noise of Harry's rune inscribing could be heard.

Perhaps a half an hour passed by, as both of them were lost within their thoughts, Hermione simply sitting upon the floor she had been cast upon and Harry intensely making his precise incisions. They didn't speak a single word.

So when Harry did speak, Hermione's eyes snapped to him in complete surprise. But his eyes did not meet hers, his eyes were seeing nothing physical. They were looking in.

His words, when they came out, were almost a whisper and laced with unbridled emotion, "It's that which makes this completely unbearable."

She cast her eyes down in a desperate effort control herself, breathing hard.

A few minutes passed and she could hear his footsteps carry himself out of the room. All that was left was silence and her own laborious breathing. Small spirals of smoke billowed out from the newly cut runes, casting shadows much bigger than themselves upon the walls.

They danced.

She cried.

. .

. &&&&&&&&& .

. .

Harry Potter sat not fifty feet away from Hermione in his study. It had once been Dumbledore's. He sat perfectly still. Hunched over, head in his hands, his hair just barely covering his clenched, tight fingers.

The study was stark bare – there had once been a lively décor, full of the previous owner's tastes, his own, and theirs combined. Pictures, souvenirs, and other emotionally substantial objects had adorned the walls and various furniture.

There was now nothing.

In fact, if one had such intimate knowledge, they'd realize the room looked strikingly similar – down to the color, the solitary desk, paper, and quills – to the Holding Room that Harry had been prisoner to for so very long. This was not a coincidence.

It even served the same purposes, although it no longer had any palpable effectiveness, merely minimizing damage through strict and rigorous warding of the occupants own making.

Papers lay scattered everywhere, broken quills thrown aside. Only a hefty pile of papers grouped perfectly at the upper right corner of the desk, with enormous amounts of symbols written in an untidy scrawl, sat with a semblance of order. Two quills lay on top of it, with the finality of their job being done.

The quills silently shook back and forth, jolting unexpectedly every once in a while. The papers remained firm.

A dark wand, forgotten hours ago, slowly shook and rolled towards the edge of the desk, dropping with a sudden and harsh clattering upon the floor. It too, went unnoticed.

The small reverberations continued.

Tears pooled in the middle of the desk, as heaving sobs wracked Harry Potter without any sign of mercy.

. .

. &&&&&&&&& .

. .

If anything, they were beautiful - hauntingly so.

Harry had spent, quite literally, two days straight engraving the runes.

All across the elegant dark wooden floor, intricate and heart-wrenchingly precise runes formed seemingly endless arrays of interwoven circles. Smooth and diamond hard were the inscriptions, no frays or splinters of the rich mahogany could be seen, let alone imagined. Each rune wasn't more than a square inch, but if they were blown up many sizes, the precision and beauty of them would not be any lesser – such was the care taken in their making.

The room had been cleared - no books, no shelves, or desk - simply the masterpiece in front of and beneath her.

As a whole it was symmetrical.

It was an overwhelming presence, with its silent and acute vigil over the only room that she could occupy. One could simply get lost in the ridiculously perfect circles of runes, without even getting immersed within their meanings.

But, the thing was, she could. And even scarier – she could make sense of them. She carefully toed her way between the rune tracks. The Cipher that Harry had worked on for so many years, the one he had given her when he was still in the Holding Room, had been an autobiography.

This – her eyes swept once more across the thousands of runes – was no autobiography. The autobiography had told the story of his life – the _why, _the _how_. This was the _what_. What lay inscribed beneath her feet simply described Harry, written in a runic language completely derived from the life that made the entity it now described.

As much as she had created objects from thin air – a cup, a towel, a dove – this would do the same. Even more so, it would create a soul. His soul.

Or rather, "repair" his soul, as Harry had corrected her a variety of times. "Purge," he had said at one point.

It made sense.

There was, of course, the catch. She looked with trepidation at the farthest, outer-most circle, made of runes she did not know. Harry had very purposely not taught her these. But she knew their objective. They were, arguably, the most important.

While all the other rings described the being, the soul of her once best friend, this ring described what to do with it.

Specifically, it would cleave hers, leaving her with her part, and Harry with his that would be subjected to whatever he had inscribed into the runes they encircled.

It sounded crazy. It was crazy. He was crazy. _She_ was crazy.

Not for the first time, Hermione closed her eyes, desperately trying to gain control of her nerves.

Today was the day.

_Today_ was the culmination of all their hard work where they both would breath life into a branch of music never touched before. Today was the third day.

It made her unthinkably terrified.

She slowly unclenched her fists and took deep, long breaths.

But she would get through it.

"Of course you will."

Hermione nearly tripped in surprise, whirling around to see Harry only several feet from her. He had clearly been there for some time. Startled and taken off guard, she asked him the first thing that came to her mind.

"What were you doing?"

"Watching you think," he replied, silently padding to the other side of the room.

And as much as his answer disconcerted her, it was not that that unnerved her so completely – it was his expression. It carried an unexpectedly collected look about it. When he lifted his eyes he had an indecipherable gaze of emotion.

He stood placidly, at ease. Alert as always, naturally, but there was… there was a tranquility there she had never felt before.

She really, truly did not know how to take this.

"I – I…. so you think I will?" she replied.

"Sure," was the short quip, as he began tightening and tying the straps of his infamous grey battle cloak.

… _battle cloak…_

But he did not allow her to continue that thought as he smoothly intervened, "aren't you going to ask me how I knew you were thinking that?"

Still, clamoring over her last thoughts, she managed to realize that perhaps she should have…

"I know I wasn't thinking out loud."

"No, you certainly weren't" he said with the same, pleasant countenance.

"Well, I know Leglimency needs eye contact, which you did not have."

"Also true."

They both stared at each other - Harry seeing things in her unknown to her, and she staring at him in a silent, awkward stupor.

"I don't get it," was all she managed to get out.

"I know," said Harry with a polite smile, "would you like me to tell you?"

"What – I mean, well, yes I guess so…." her mind raced, thinking of the variety of possibilities such as mirrors, spells, and more but found nothing. She was beginning to calm down, the odd ease in which he was carrying himself becoming familiar to her, if still unknown.

Harry took that moment to close the door with a gentle swing of his hand.

"It's nothing esoteric or obscure. It's not even magic. It's just that you always have the same stance and expression when you're priming yourself to face a situation where you find the odds against you. You tend to always ball your fists, with your arms very taut and the elbows locked at the 180 degree position – ah, and you always have this insanely erect stance too with your legs, kind of like this…"

And he proceeded to act it out.

He looked…

He looked utterly ridiculous.

"That's kind of the point, you _do_ look ridiculous," his voice casually intoned in.

Her eyes narrowed as she realized what he had just said, but before she could reprimand him he cut in.

"Okay now _that -_ I admit - was Leglimency – it's your fault for glaring at me, you should know this by now, truly. But still, the stance is a dead give-away. Dobby did the same thing."

_What the fuck…_

She was such an inane combination of flustered, offended, and confused that she truly had nothing to say.

"Water?" he asked politely?

"Um, no…"

"You're positive?"

"Yes…"

"Alright then, well," her heart soared to her mouth.

"Let's do this."

She nodded in silence. He had said it with such casual nonchalance. Something was off. She looked at him once more, searching.

And she noticed what she had never before. Lines and bags surrounded and bogged his eyes that she hadn't seen previously. His pupils, surrounded by that brilliant green were heavily dilated, dilat-ing in fact. Her eyes flicked to the rest of him – sure enough, he was thinner, paler. How had she not noticed?

She now realized that it wasn't just a certain calmness that his presence bore so heavily.

He was tired.

Really, really tired. Not once had she ever since the trial had she seen him look worn, not even during their first meeting in the holding room or any of the numerous ones after that.

But now…

"Yes, yes yes…" he said, "I am fading. Weakening. I cannot sleep, I cannot find any lasting nourishment – be it physical or no. I am, in every sense of the word but the physical - dying."

Silence. He walked further, not bothering to give any hint of his inner emotions.

The next words were a whisper, as though to himself, "so odd…" and he turned away from her, gazing lovingly over the runes he had so painstakingly engraved. He bent down every once in a while, touching them carefully and tenderly.

One particular rune, or set of runes seemed to catch his attention and he got down on one knee to better look at it. His face was of deep thought. Hermione simply watched him, unwilling to interrupt.

He smoothly sat down on the floor, grazing his hands over the runes until he suddenly looked up, beckoning Hermione over in a jarringly tender gesture.

"Come."

She walked over in something of a daze.

"Sit."

She did.

He stared at her, emerald eyes open and inviting.

"Now roll over."

Her eyes ballooned and she swelled with swift anger and stood up sharply, a retort upon her lips, but she was interrupted.

"Calm down, calm down…. " he said with faint smile, chuckling, "I'm only joking. Please, I really do want you to sit."

Hermione could barely even think she was so angry, but she remained standing.

Harry laughed silently, putting his hands upon his knees, wand held between both of his hands.

"I think you might actually, literally be fuming."

"Wouldn't you?" she snapped.

"I suppose so, " was his only reply, the smile fading away until it was just both of them her standing and he sitting there.

Minutes passed by.

She could not but help stare at the man – called legend by most – that was Harry Potter. He was in a surprisingly vulnerable position – sitting upon the floor, wand now lying idly on the floor, arms loose around his knees. His eyes were unfocused, merely staring. Only candlelight lit the room, and she was intimately aware of the shadows cast upon the floor and walls.

She felt the weight of their situation and rather unwillingly sensed her anger dissipate to essentially nothing.

How - how he had always held the ability to do that to her?

Fighting her pride, she sat down.

Harry did not immediately acknowledge her presence, but after a minute or so he looked at her.

"Hermione, " and he paused, "this is going to hurt."

She could feel her throat involuntarily constrict.

"This is really, _really_ going to hurt. It's going to feel wrong, foreign, _alien_. But only at first. You will be surprised at how normal you feel so quickly, considering what will have happened. A soul can be created, or destroyed in a second. It cannot, however be _made_ in any short period of time."

She merely stared at him.

"And that, above all, is your number one advantage. It is your only chance. Hermione?" he asked in search of confirmation.

"Yes… yes, I understand."

And she did.

"Do not be lax, do not forget. Constantly remind yourself of why you do what you do, tie it in with who you are and how you got there. When one's past and present are discontinuous – refuse to be in a continuum – with their future… problems arise, and this is the most extreme of such cases."

She nodded, touched that he was even giving some sort of advice, "thank you," she whispered. And they sat, not a yard apart, facing each other thinking indecipherable thoughts. Hermione's thoughts were a whirlwind of her time with Harry, from day one.

Harry shook his head, "I have kept myself leeched of magic in the past month. I need to do this while I still have some vestige of self control, I am the most lucid right now than I have been in years. It is strange, but not unwelcome. Although greater lucidity also means greater guilt – and I must confess that ignorance or blind anger is sometimes – almost always – the preferred option."

Hermione knew what she was hearing was terribly important, unsure of whether she wanted to hear this privy information or not.

"It is not, however, as though I ever have an option. There is never actually a choice."

He was whispering now.

"Not anymore."

Candlelight was the only movement for several long moments.

"Things are… no longer where they should be. Jumbled. Lost. I have been for some time."

Hermione stared at him intently.

"I do not know the state I am in right now," he said, as his fingers brushed the runes once more, as though they were the tether to his very existence.

And in almost every sense of the word, they were.

"And when this operation has finished, Hermione you must heed my words. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," she breathed heavily, attention rapt.

"Do not linger, do not be curious, do not care. Get. Out." And his finger pointed emphatically towards the door.

"It is locked now, but will be… opened by the time you are up. Of that I have no doubt" and his eyes glazed over for just the tiniest of seconds. He continued.

"There is nothing for you here – and truly, there never was. Things are going to happen that will be far, far, _far_ out of your control and I can almost guarantee you that you will be consumed by it. When you wake up, Hermione…"

His eyes pinned hers with a fiery intensity.

"Run."

She gulped thickly.

He pointed to where they were sitting, and he knelt on one knee, his body posture tightening and quickly gaining acuteness.

His warning was over. She recognized the tonal change of his demeanor. It was time.

"We'll stay here."

She nodded. It made sense.

She knew what "here" was referring to - it was the epicenter of the great runic inscription – "the eye of the storm" as she called it. A rune-less circle of about a 6 feet diameter, sitting exactly in the middle of the runic labyrinth.

"This requires no fanfare. No fancy or ornate embellishments. This is not a ritual, it is a procedure. There is precision here. I've gone over it countless times, there is no need for the bone of my father, blood of some unborn enemy, or other such foolishness that involves some outrageous amount of variability. What lays all around us are runes, my runes, my _truth_. They will not lie to us. I know them, you know them and they are going to do what they have been ordained to do."

She nodded intently, she knew this. It was still reassuring to hear, none the less.

"All this requires is what it always does – a breath of your air, your _life_. And mine. Yours will go first. Put forth whatever time you need to prepare, I won't rush you. Simply focus on what you know, I know you can do this. As do you."

Hermione closed her eyes, pushing down whatever emotions she was able. His words had comforted her, she had heard the confidence in his voice of her abilities and his runes.

She took one last look at the room around her. Harry now sat upon his heels, posture relaxed and at ease. His grey battle robes pooled elegantly around him and his black wand was held by his two hands as though he was about to be knighted.

His eyes were closed. At peace.

It was a strange sight which brought even stranger feelings.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes once more, slowly, until the flickering candlelight turned into darkness.

Silence.

Her breathing became acutely aware to her, and memories of her muggle youth floated to her mind of when the doctor would listen to her breathing at check ups.

That had been so long ago.

Dr. Martin Shockle. She still remembered.

She remembered how she had wanted to giggle so badly upon hearing his last name, but her father sent her a stern look, effectively stopping her. His office always had this stuffed bear with the name "Sheron" on it. She never knew why.

Her breathing slowed even more.

She continued listening, her pulse now evident within her ears. Her breathing had become so familiar to her it was once again background, even in complete silence.

She could hear her life force in between those deep breaths and rhythmic beats – she could _feel _the oxygen flowing through her mouth, eddying within her lungs, and pumping triumphantly throughout her body giving her the beautiful, vibrant gift of life. She felt her face smile in raw appreciation.

Each breath bore with it the ability to make her and every other living being do the amazing, the spectacular, and the impossible. Today it would require her to do all three. And yet, she had accomplished so much already. Integrated herself into the wizarding world as one of the most established muggleborns in the wizarding society, graduated Hogwarts with flying honors, fought and survived a war she played a large part in, formed a loving marriage, and more.

The smile that played about her lips slowly diminished

_And yet… and yet, that wasn't quite what she was facing here._

Today she would be magicking souls. Real and live souls. _Her_ soul. Her accomplishments before were human accomplishments – marriage, grades, societal acceptance. A soul was on a whole different playing field. They weren't even remotely similar.

Her pulse quickened, and her breaths more laborious.

She would tear her soul open, using its balance and purity to perhaps bring Harry's solace and consistency.

Harry had initially compared it to the Muggle medical technique of a blood transfusion.

But this was no simple transfusion. Blood, fed by the oxygen her lungs pumped in and out of it, was a simple thing – an unthinking existence that did what it was supposed to. More could be made, it was her blood, but it was not special.

Not as special as a soul. A soul was above anything else… _hers_. Unique and fitting. Only one. It wasn't even a physical, but a metaphysical entity born at the same time as life, and crafted with time.

And she would be ripping it apart.

She swallowed thickly.

She had lost her left arm during one of the many battles during the war, and while it had been re-attached within minutes, she could still very distinctly remember the _wrongness_ associated with the emptiness that occupied the space her arm should have.

She could only imagine what it would feel like to have her soul maimed and mangled.

Injuring… _purposely_ injuring her soul.

It was simply wrong, even more wrong than when she first heard the idea from Harry's lips. It was worse now that she knew so much about it. So much worse…

She could feel her fingers trembling, her body and mind begging her not to go through with this crazed plan.

She had seen dementors feed on the souls of wizards and muggles alike and could readily identify with the fear she saw encompass the victims' entire body and visage. Hers would not be eaten, no, but it would be violated in the most sacred of senses.

_A soul should not be touched!_

She should not be doing this - some things are better off left alone, untouched by humans. Some things were not meant to be tinkered with…

She felt like a modern day Prometheus, and feared greatly what the Gods' punishment would be.

Souls are inhuman, godly creations, beyond the human casings they came in. But… but they were inevitably what made humans…. human. To mess with something so sacred, so inextricably intertwined with one's being, so purposely beyond human comprehension…

The consequences would be unthinkably severe! She only need think of Harry to confirm her latent fears.

Some. Things. Should. Not. Be. Touched.

Beads of sweat were now streaking down her forehead. Her entire body was screaming at her to listen to her senses and simply leave, get out of this situation by any means.

To die. Kill herself. Run?

_Anything_ was better!

She was panicking and she knew it.

All the feelings and fears she had held bottled up had shot directly to her throat, severely affecting her ability to think, rationalize, let alone breath.

She thought of the war, the injuries. Harry's criminal trials. She thought of Voldemort, his eyes, his sneer. His laughter. The tightness in her throat threatened to expand and implode. She could barely perceive herself gasping for breath. She was coughing but couldn't hear it.

She suddenly thought of her mother. She thought of her father's first work promotion. She thought of her acceptance to Hogwarts. She thought of her favorite food. She thought of why she didn't like pretzels. Ron. His favorite food. Butterflies. Flowers. Rain. Light Rain. A cool light rain. Autumn breezes.

Her heart now fluttering in relief, and she opened her eyes, just barely.

To find Harry's looking right into them.

His right hand was held out, a cool, slightly pulsating wind blowing from it upon her forehead.

Slowly, slowly, she fully opened her eyes, filling them with the emerald green in front of her.

_Comfort._

"Whenever you're ready."

She blinked.

Harry closed his eyes and once more resumed his close-lidded visual.

Moments of long silence filled with candlelight flickering passed. A few seconds passed where she feared her thoughts would once again bring her to the hellish demons her mind had succumbed to only a few minutes ago. But, she came to a strange and surprising revelation.

She _was_ ready.

She could do this.

She _would_ do this.

She grabbed her wand tightly, but still maintained a loose enough grip for dexterity. She put the tip just beyond her lips.

And as she inhaled deeply, she thought of the man in front of her. She thought of his eyes only a moment ago – the strong, silent warrior. The ever shining beacon of strength and salvation. The general. The boy. The murderer. The master conniver.

Two very conflicting views.

And yet… as contrasting as all these were. It made sense.

_The Gradual Descent_.

A continuum.

She knew what his soul had been subjected to. Not precisely, no. But enough. She knew what it had been, and she knew what it was now. As scary as he was, it simply made sense. The memories he had shown her in the pensive swam and mixed with her own and warmth filled her.

She smiled and opened her eyes.

Harry still sat there, placid and patient. The cautious and silent strength he always exuded as strong and potent as ever. To know this man possessed the love and will she knew him to have filled her with pride and devotion.

But she checked herself. What she said wasn't untrue. It just wasn't the entire truth. That part wasn't gone, she told herself, it was broken.

He was broken. His soul was adrift, in pieces, spinning around in unknown and traumatic metaphorical continental drifts. Collisions, crashes, explosions caused the hectic, unpredictable chaotic state Harry now existed in. There was no longer any overarching feeling or sense of direction for him, he had lost that battle long ago and could only reclaim it in rare moments.

Her eyes flicked to his hair, as characteristic as it had been from day one.

Such rare moments…

_Such as now._

And how beautiful those moments were.

She would do this. For him. For her. She wanted her Harry back, and she was willing to do even this arcane deed to see him simply harbor the chance to come back. She knew – she _knew_ – that Ron would want it as well. Every one did.

But one thing was for certain.

_She_ did.

And with the self assurance of a person whose heart and intellect were well placed and poised with readiness, she closed her eyes and blew the softest of breaths.

. .

. &&&&&&&&& .

. .

It was at that moment that Harry's eyes opened with a light and ready expectedness. His sharp emerald eyes caught a delicate, translucent silver come from Hermione's finely pursed lips – it was a mist, roiling and churning to its inner crosswinds – and began to shape itself into what he had expected for some time – an otter.

He watched as it frolicked, playing in the air as though it were the sea – swimming, jumping, and pawing across the invisible water until it came upon the floor. It turned, seemingly making eye contact with him – its expression was expectant, curious, and playful.

Harry did not immediately acknowledge the small otter, but took another minute to observe. Then, with a patient air, gestured ever so slightly with his head towards a singular rune. No words were needed, the otter already knew anyhow and it bounded over to the rune.

The otter looked back at him one last time. Harry met its gaze with a stony and deep expression. The otter rolled on its back, pawing at its head, cleaning itself as if in preparation.

_As it should be._

Suddenly it spun and took the final few steps and bounded into the rune – the lightning rune – and disappeared.

The runes – all of them – suddenly lit in a low silver glow.

Harry released a slow and steady sigh.

He could hear Hermione slump to the floor, unconscious, as he knew she would.

Her tiny hand fell just into the edges of his peripheral vision, fingers uncurling as her body succumbed to his runic manipulations. Her wand had fallen as well, and had rolled in a semicircle and was now caught within the curls of her hair, currently cushioning and framing her slow fall's resting place.

With a careful gesture he summoned her wand, taking care not to get it caught in her hair in the process.

He caught it and stared at it for a long while. He grabbed a portion of his robes and cleaned her wand. He was meticulous, and it soon looked as he knew it would have looked had she been at her home, her normal life, as it would be if he weren't in it.

He crawled over to her prostrate form, only a couple feet away and slipped her wand between her despondent and motionless fingers. With a very purposefully tender gesture he put his hand around hers, clasping her fingers around her wand, letting go only when he was sure the wand would not fall from her new grasp.

He backed away to his original spot, still staring at her. A few long moments passed.

His eyes looked away from her with a slow and assured turn, and he took a deep breath.

With absolutely no hesitation he closed his eyes, brought his wand tip up smoothly to his mouth, and blew softly.

Unlike Hermione, he did not know for sure what form would come from his mouth – or equivalently, his soul.

He had done this many times in lesser procedures, and each time a different creature came out – yet another of the dozens of signs of his inner chaotic turmoil.

So it was with closed eyes that his white misted creature bounded in after Hermione's otter. He needn't look for any sort of confirmation of its type, it would only bring more pain.

But had he looked, had he opened his eyes, even he might not have even been able to push down a surging glint of pride from blossoming in his emerald eyes upon seeing what did come forth from his mangled soul – Prongs.

Prongs, who had lied dormant for so many, many years, came bounding with inexorable majestic pride, loping elegantly out of his wand and careening gracefully after the otter, his long lost friend.

The runes flashed once more, this time much brighter and vibrant, but Harry made no note of it as his limp and unconscious form slumped to the floor.

. .

. &&&&&&&&& .

. .

Hermione woke up gasping for breath in dry, heaving coughs.

She couldn't see – not really – only spare images would stay with any sort of consistency within her massively confused mind. Spinning, blurring, turning, morphing… she was only aware she was moving all directions at once but her body wasn't moving at all.

She couldn't hear. She couldn't feel. Something was off. Something was wrong. Many things were wrong.

Was she in shock? She didn't know. She continued to be fed images of the room, her memories, and the shady projections of both of them combined in her mind.

Silence – silence - silence

But she could _feel _her body moving. She was writhing, twisting, shaking. Why? Why?

_WHY?_

Her breathing was something close to a panic attack but her mind just couldn't keep up with the chaos her body seemed to be possessed with, and she simply saw it all as a smooth, thick, dreamlike state. It was fluidic, and intensely viscous.

Minutes, hours of this state passed by. Perhaps seconds, she had no idea.

But then frames began to piece together in her mind to form a continuous stream of meaningful imagery.

She saw her room, dark.

She saw her body reeling as though repetitively being scalded with hot boiling oil. One moment her face was looking at the ceiling, another moment the walls, the next shaking violently upon the hard wooden floor.

At one point she saw Harry. Motionless. She saw Harry again. Motionless.

Her right arm was twitching uncontrollably, but she merely stared at it as if in wonder. A stupor.

Her mind was so lethargic, completely unable to process anything, as she watched in and with muted silence as her body contorted in some sort of pain that she currently had no sense of feeling at all of.

Which was good, because felt herself tighten and her entire body finally go still, she began an elongated, prolonged yawning position.

And _screamed._

_That_ was when her hearing senses came back.

She couldn't even control it, the very roots of her own being were coming out in an unearthly, horrific scream that tore the very rafters with its intensity. Her mouth simply gaped open as it came ravaging out with its terrible loudness. It simply just kept coming out, she had no control.

And then it stopped, and she became _aware_. Her mind had returned to her. It was at this moment she became acutely aware of EVERYTHING. Every little thing! _This _was when she felt the wrongness, the emptiness, the horror of what had happened and was currently reaping its gleeful destruction upon her soul.

Her mind went into immediate overload. And it was at this moment she _felt_.

She had never experienced so much pain. No other physical pain could compare. Indeed she could not even pinpoint a physical place where it did hurt, because _she_ hurt. The sensory neurons were not the ones telling her of this pain, it was _her_ telling of _her_ pain. Her soul. Her soul had been scalded, burnt with sharp laser-like precision and the open incisions bled and bit in the open air.

Her soul had been riven. Her body and soul were currently experiencing the worse pain she had ever felt, by miles. Nothing, absolutely nothing was functioning, she was a shell, just barely existing. She felt her body and her mind begin to shut down, as the sheer pain overtook them both.

With monumental effort, probably taking many minutes, she made her first controlled mental process - her decision had been made.

The pain was completely unbearable.

_Accept what's been given to you._

She began to slowly, inexorably move her eyelids down, to shut forever. She watched with an outsider's eye as the ceiling she had spent so much time staring at over the past few months became a thinner and thinner slit until it was nearly no more.

And so it was with great surprise that she saw a shadow cross the tiny slits that still left her eyes uncovered, and felt a heaviness upon her shoulder.

A muted but distinct voice pierced her darkness.

Faster than the closing, her eyes opened and were met by the most piercingly periwinkle blue eyes she had ever encountered.

It took her some time to realize that she'd seen them before. She _knew_ them. With a newfound sense of urgency she begged her mind and eyes to simply focus, to turn the spinning, blurry scene in front of her to what she thought – she hoped and prayed – it would show her.

The blue eyes were the key, the pivot point to steady her inner chaos.

Minutes dragged by, finally the vision steadied, and the blurriness became sharp. Her intake of breath was violent and gasping.

"Welcome back, Hermione."

Albus Dumbledore knelt beside her.

Tears immediately began to swell and fall from her eyes, and she fumbled for both the phrasing and the motor skills to say something – anything…

"You too, Professor…" she gulped down a surge of hot emotion, "you too."

. .

. &&&&&&&&& .

. .


End file.
